


tumblr ficlets

by emungere



Category: Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal (TV), King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome, Alternate Universe - Victorian, BDSM, Bodyswap, Cats, Corsetry, Crossdressing, Cults, Dogs, Dom/sub, Feral Behavior, Food Sex, Inappropriate Humor, Kid Fic, M/M, Sugar Daddy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:04:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 76
Words: 48,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3169226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of tiny things written for people on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. florence

**Author's Note:**

> The Nice Hannibal ones now have their own doc: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5893291/
> 
> And now the post-fall sub Will ones do too: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6556588
> 
> Aaaand the motel room proposal ones: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8120212
> 
> ...And the teen Hannibal ficlets: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8445424

arguably contains s3 spoilers? depending on how you look at it. For trekkingal from [this picture](http://emungere.tumblr.com/post/107790047147/trekkingal-asked-for-something-based-on-this-pic) from s3.

-

Hannibal walked easily down worn streets of Florence. He could smell the food being prepared in the restaurants he passed as they came alive for lunch. He could almost smell the sun and the scent of the old stone itself. He could also smell one of the men following him, cheap leather and cigarette smoke. The others were too far away, but he was aware of them nonetheless, confident that he had all his pursuers in mind if not in immediate sight. 

And then Will Graham fell into step beside him. A wave of vertigo swallowed Hannibal whole for a fraction of a second. Without Will’s tight grip on his elbow, he would have stumbled to a dumb stop in the middle of the street. 

"Mason Verger’s goons are following you," Will said. 

"Yes, I know. Two behind me and one in front. Another on the orange motorbike." 

"Guess I tipped my hand for nothing," Will said, but he didn’t sound particularly upset about it. 

"I didn’t know you were here. The FBI seemed to have lost interest in me."

"I’m on Mason’s payroll. Well, I was until ten seconds ago. Pretty sure I’m fired now. But I knew he’d find you first." 

"You have betrayed him again. He won’t be pleased." 

"Yeah. So we should probably get out of here." 

"Am I under arrest?"

"I’m not here to arrest you."

"Then why are you here, Will?"

"Because I still don’t hate you enough to let Mason Verger feed you to his pigs." 

Gunshots. The orange motorbike shot past them, and Will stumbled and fell, blood on his face. Hannibal pulled him up and dragged 

Will’s arm around his neck. 

"I’m okay," Will said. He had a hand pressed to his side. 

"Can you walk?"

He could, and did. After a few steps, they both broke into a run, together.


	2. Feral twink Will Graham

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal meets a much younger Will at a bar.

Shadows pooled in the corners of the bar, dark as oil and similarly iridescent. Hannibal stood at the back of the room with his drink held up to shield his small smile from view. Someone would catch his eye before too long. It wouldn’t be art, not tonight, but it would be better than going to the butcher. 

A commotion broke out around the corner, in the hall that lead to the restrooms. A man came stumbling out, blood dripping from his nose and mouth. He spat, and a spray of red landed on the wall. Slim, early twenties, dark curls and wide eyes. Another man followed on his heels, fists raised. A space cleared around them.

The second man was much larger and clearly more intoxicated. He swayed and glared. 

“No would’ve good enough,” the young man muttered. He wiped at his nose again. 

“I don’t want your fuckin’ fag mouth anywhere near my fuckin’ dick, catch some kinda queer disease.” 

Hannibal frowned, displeased with the language, the sentiment, and the situation. He couldn’t take anyone from this place tonight after such an incident. The police might review the security tapes. A wasted trip. 

He turned to go and stopped as the larger man lunged forward, curious about the outcome despite himself. The bouncer was making his way closer, but he wouldn’t be in time. One blow landed on the young man’s stomach. He doubled over briefly and then came up to head butt his opponent right between the eyes. Bridge of the nose crushed, a gout of blood and an enraged roar. The young man drove his fist into the drunk’s stomach three times almost too fast to see and then hooked his leg out from under him. He stepped back as the man fell to the floor, groaning.

A few whistles and cheers came from the crowd. The young man’s grin was a feral baring of bloodied teeth.


	3. eclairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Hannibal likes to fuck eclairs](http://imaginehanniballecter.tumblr.com/post/87810476134/imagine-hannibal-lecter-putting-his-dick-in-a).

Everyone tried to ignore it, but eventually Jack called a general meeting of the BAU. Not just the usual suspects. It was a packed house. Zeller and Price stood at the back of the room and gestured Beverly over before they saw that she held Will by the sleeve of his jacket. They looked at each other. Price shrugged. 

“You think it was him?” Zeller said, loud enough to be overheard by anyone who cared to listen. 

“I do fingerprints and dental records, both conspicuously missing in this case,” Price said. 

“Shut up,” Beverly said. “Jack’s gonna say it, and I am getting this on tape.” She held up her iPhone.

“Did you put a fresh tape in?” Zeller said. 

“Nobody likes a smart ass.” 

“I might’ve had a few people point that out to me in high school, usually through the door of my locker.”

He got shushed by someone in the row ahead of him. They all craned their necks as Jack stalked into the room. 

“You’re aware of the eclair situation,” Jack said. 

“I’m not,” someone called. 

Nervous giggles circled the room and died under Jack’s glare. Beverly held up her iPhone and crossed her fingers. 

“Fine,” Jack said, with a massive sigh. “As you all know, we’ve had a tradition of eclairs in the break room since that incident in the pastry shop. We’re all clear on that?” General nods. Jack took a slow breath. “Someone has been fucking the eclairs,” he said. 

Beverly pressed stop on her iPhone and hugged it to her chest, mission accomplished. 

“Don’t put it on Youtube,” Price muttered. “Not worth the fallout.” 

“Are you joking?” she whispered. “I’m playing it at the Christmas party. I’ll do a remix.” Will tried to slide out of the room, but she held onto him. “Jack wanted to see you,” she said. 

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“So keep an eye out,” Jack said. “I don’t want to think it’s one of us, but whoever it is has access. Okay, that’s it. Get out.”

Jack beckoned Will over as everyone else evacuated the room.

“I really don’t want to get involved with this,” Will said.

“Just take a look at the break room before I get someone in to clean it up. See if you get anything.” 

“I’m not psychic, Jack. I interpret forensic evidence.”

“And that’s all I’m asking you to do.” 

“How do you even know he’s fucking them?”

“Just take a look.” 

Will sighed and followed him to the break room. 

He had to admit, the eclairs looked pretty fucked. They weren’t big enough for full penetration, of course, but it looked like someone had bitten off the ends and pushed at least the head into the cream-filled centers. And then added some cream of his own. The white stripes that laced the top of the remaining eclairs were definitely not white chocolate. 

“Is this actually a crime?” Will asked. “Assuming it is one of us, the eclairs are more or less common property. What are you going to do you if you catch this guy?” 

“Make sure he doesn’t do it again.” 

Will glanced at set of his jaw and his arms crossed over his chest and decided he believed him. He looked over the scene, but any physical evidence except DNA or dental impressions wouldn’t be much good. Everyone in the BAU had been through here, leaving an accumulation of fibers and fingerprints, hairs, disarranged sugar packets, and moldering cups of coffee. 

“This is the most absurd thing I’ve ever done,” he told Jack. 

“You should get out more,” Jack said. 

Will squatted down, eye-level with the plate of violated pastries. He stared and let his eyes unfocus slightly. One moment, he saw bitten off ends and more semen than he’d ever wanted to see near food he’d considered consuming. The next, he saw the familiar black and white box that they came in sitting on Hannibal’s kitchen counter. Two weeks ago, he remembered, and again a week before that.

He straightened up slowly. “I’ll think about it,” he told Jack, and left as quickly as he could. 

He drove aimlessly, not toward home, not toward Baltimore. He eventually found himself parked outside the bakery. What did he think he was going to do? Present Hannibal with a box and see if he went to town on them right there in the front hall?

He went into the bakery anyway, and saw it as soon as he got through the door: one large eclair on its own shelf in the bakery case. The folded card in front of it declared it to be an eclair cake. It might as well have said ‘Large enough to fuck’. Will bought it without a second thought; without, in fact, a first thought. 

By the time he arrived on Hannibal’s doorstep, irritation had overwhelmed any consideration for Hannibal’s feelings. He shoved the box against Hannibal’s chest and pushed past him into the house. 

“Jack had me look at the BAU break room today. You want to know why?”

Hannibal looked down at the box. “I believe I can guess.”

“I bet you can. And an hour ago, that was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done. In my life, Hannibal. I thought about it while I was driving to the goddamn bakery and I didn’t come up with anything worse. Until I got there and I bought that.”

Hannibal raised his eyebrows, opened the box, and stared. All expression fell from his face. “Is this…for me?” he asked. 

“Well, I sure as hell don’t want it.” 

“This is not the response I would’ve expected.” 

“I don’t know what response would be appropriate. Do not do that at Quantico again. That was just…” He struggled for an adequate description and came up considerably short. “Rude,” he said. “And that is not a conversation with Jack that I want to repeat.” 

“I can imagine it was awkward. And instead of ruining my reputation, you bring me a gift.” 

“I saw it and I thought of you,” Will snapped, still too annoyed for anything like tact. 

Hannibal was quiet for a few more seconds, and then he looked up at Will, composed once more. “How kind. Did you intend for us to enjoy it together?” 

“What— No. What?” Will shut his mouth firmly for fear of what else might come out of it. He took a step toward the door. 

“You’re not disgusted,” Hannibal said. “You brought me this for a reason. Perhaps you’d like to watch rather than participate?”

“I just brought it. I wasn’t thinking about— that.”

“What were you thinking?” 

Will opened his mouth and closed it again. His subconscious inconveniently shoved the truth to the forefront of his mind, and he swallowed. “I thought you’d like it,” he said quietly. “That’s all.” 

“And I do.” Hannibal took his arm and led him toward the stairs. “Let me show you.”

Will followed, one slow step after another. He glanced back once at the door, but he knew it was too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are left feeling you would like some more fic about Hannibal and his, uh, _fondness_ for eclairs, please check out [this fic by thecountessolivia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11707665/chapters/26474691). (And it's totally not my fault, whatever she says.)


	4. bdsm date thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From this prompt:
> 
>  
> 
> _Hannibal and Will meet through a dating service. Will isn't expecting to be matched to a man, but finds that they are much more physically compatible than he could have anticipated, and that he loves being dominated by Hannibal. Hannibal finds that he and Will have much more in common than he would have ever expected. He wants to keep this man with him (under him) forever <3 Also, Hannibal buying Will expensive things, and shifting not-always-equal power balance?_

"Finish your wine," Hannibal said. 

“Long drive home.”

“I’ll drive you if you’re concerned.”

“I’m not concerned.” There wasn’t more than a single swallow left.

“Then finish it.” 

Will picked up his glass and watched Hannibal through crystal tinted red with pinot noir. It wasn’t the first order he’d been given tonight. It also wasn’t he first he’d obeyed. 

The waiter arrived with the check. Will reached for it. Hannibal caught his wrist in a hard grip. Will looked up at him, startled, hand flexing. 

"You don’t pay when you’re out with me.” His tone was mild. 

Will swallowed. He looked at Hannibal’s hand, thumb digging into the skin in next to his wrist bone. “No? What do I do?” he said.

"You do as you’re told.” 

“I— I think there’s been some kind of miscommunication.” He didn’t try to break Hannibal’s grip. “I wasn’t looking for this.”

“Are you certain?” Hannibal asked. He squeezed a little tighter, and Will’s pulse picked up. “Do you want me to let you go?” 

Will stared down at his hand, the veins slightly raised, blood just under the skin. “I’ve never done anything like this,” he said. 

“That’s not an answer.” 

“I don’t know what to expect.”

“We can talk about that.” 

“Then— Then no.” He took a breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t really want you to let go.” 

*

Hannibal walked Will back to his car after dinner and kissed him there with their fingers laced together and Hannibal’s body pressing him tight against the car door. The slow tease of his tongue and sharp scrape of teeth at Will’s lower lip took over his entire mind until his only thoughts were of Hannibal and of how very long it had been since anyone kissed him at all. 

Will licked his lips when he pulled back and couldn’t find a single thing to say. The shadow of a smirk pulled at Hannibal’s lips. He put one finger under Will’s chin and closed his mouth for him. 

“I will call you tomorrow,” he said. “When would be convenient?”

“Anytime? Uh. I’ll be done with work by four.” 

“At five, then. And we’ll discuss dinner plans.” 

Will nodded, though it hadn’t been a question. Hannibal was so sure, so definite about everything, from wine to modern art to, apparently, his desire for Will’s company. 

“What kind of dinner plans?” Will said. 

“As I said, we’ll speak of that tomorrow. Unless you have some pressing reason to discuss it now?” 

“Who gets to decide if my reason is pressing or not?”

“I do. Of course, your wishes are important to me, but in the end, the decision will be mine. If that’s not something you want, we need not continue.” 

“How far does this go?” 

“There is a certain amount of control that I will insist on if we’re to see one another, but beyond that, it’s up to you.”

“But what—“

Hannibal laid a finger over Will’s lips. “We will discuss it, I promise you. For now, all you need do is go home, go about your day tomorrow, and wait for my call at five. Let me worry about the rest.” 

“That’s it? Just…leave it all to you?” 

Hannibal studied his face and leaned in again, hand warm on the side of Will’s neck. “You have enough to worry about, don’t you? This isn’t one more item on your list of cares, Will. This is a respite from them. Is that something you want?”

Will was nodding before he’d fully processed the sentence, jaw locked tight, eyes on the ground. 

“Then yes. Leave it all to me.”


	5. jack the ripper au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _larissabernstein asked:_  
>  Do you still take prompts? Because I can't get this idea out of my head and would love to see it in a fic... There is something about Hannibal, all this shaping and forming and manipulating, that reminds me of Shaw's "Pygmalion", in a very twisted way, of course. He would be a formidable Professor Higgins (even his secret murderous pastime would fit nicely into the Edwardian era), and Will wonderful as his student, turning the tables on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Hannibal/Pygmalion/Jack the Ripper Victorian era mashup…thing. (Hannibal is not Jack the Ripper, but still a serial killer. If there were more of this, he and Will would catch him together.)

Hannibal loved the flower market at closing time. A thousand thousand lingering scents of crushed blooms overlaid the smoke from charcoal braziers and the less pleasant but no less fascinating individual odors of the sellers. He moved easily from shadow to shadow, notebook in hand. 

The speech patterns echoed the scent profiles. He had noticed it first in a large man from south London. His particular neighborhood reeked of bitumen, pine resin, and charred oak from the wine casks manufactured nearby. He had a tendency to clip his A’s, to extend the O’s, and a propensity for certain curses. Hannibal could now pick out anyone from that neighborhood by speech or smell.

Something sharp slipped under his coat and pressed against his ribs. He paused, pencil suspended over paper. “If it’s money you want—“

“I ain’t no thief.” The blade pressed harder. The fabric of his shirt began to give way.

“Then what can I do for you?” Hannibal asked. His own knife was in his pocket. If the man meant murder, he could get to it easily enough. For the moment, a thief who didn’t want money was a pleasant novelty. 

“You’re writing down what they say. That’s spy work. Or the goddamn pigs. Nobody here’s doing nothing wrong. You better just keep walking.” 

"I’m not recording what they say. I am recording how they say it. I’m a linguist. Do you know what that means?” 

“Sounds like you’d find it at a whorehouse.”

“Unlikely. It is the study of language.”

“What would you want to study their language for?”

"Why would you say ‘their’ and not ‘our’? Are you not one of them?” 

“You’re the linguist, friend. You tell me.”

"I would say that, despite your affected East London vowels, you were most likely born in America. The south. Perhaps Louisiana. I’m not familiar enough with the range of accents and speech patterns there to be more precise.”

The pause from the man behind him told him that he’d got it right. The knife pressed in with a jerk, and Hannibal smelled blood, though the cut was nearly too fine to be felt. A sharp blade. 

“That’s no business of yours.” 

"No, it’s not. Nor is my business any of yours. Are you so protective of these people?”

"Someone oughta be. You know how many of these folks go home to Whitechapel every night?” 

"Do you suspect me of being… What was the charming phrase, Will? Down on whores?” 

Hannibal found himself jerked backwards sharply into the concealment of a portico, an arm locked across his throat. 

"How the fuck do you know my name?” 

“Your accent and speech patterns are distinctive. I have heard you in brief conversation with the other denizens of this place. Two or three nights ago. One of them used your name. It took me a few moments to place you. Is this a killing offense, Will?”

Will released him abruptly and stepped back. “I’m not a killer.”

Hannibal turned to face him. “What are you?”

"Nothing. No one. Just passing through.”

"London is not your permanent residence, then?”

Will bent to slip the knife back into his boot. “No such thing as permanent. I’ll be here till I got enough money to move on.”

"I would like to see you before you move on. As I said, I am largely unfamiliar with the speech patterns from your part of the world. I would, of course, offer compensation.” 

“Does that mean I’d get paid?”

Hannibal watched the shift of his weight, the desire for flight, the dark and wary look in his eyes. Dirt stained his hands and nails and the bottoms of his trousers. His boots were starting to separate from their soles to let in the rain. His hair hung in his eyes, ragged and lank. Hannibal had a peculiar and abrupt desire to see him clean.

"Yes," he said. “Ten pounds. You must stay for at least a fortnight.” 

"Stay? With you?”

“Have you anywhere else to go?”

Will looked away, hands rubbing fitfully down his thighs. He shook his head. 

Hannibal took out his card case and offered a card to Will. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Won’t I?”

Will snatched it from him and disappeared into the shadows without a reply.


	6. marriage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marriage.

Will shifted on the hard wooden bench in the hall. He’d been to New York City only once before, for a case. 

“They found all these feet floating in the Hudson,” he said.

"And did you find the culprit?" Hannibal asked.

"Yeah. Eventually. He wasn’t killing them though. He worked at the city morgue.”

Will scuffed his own feet on the worn linoleum floor. Across the hall, A couple emerged hand-in-hand, smiling at each other. A woman appeared in the doorway and beckoned to them. She had dyed red hair and a kind expression.

Will shot out of his seat. Hannibal stood more slowly and straightened his tie. They advanced together. “We could have done this in the Cathedral of Mary,” Hannibal murmured.

Will glanced at him. “I don’t think we could have.”

“Everyone has a price.”

"Probably not the Catholic Church. And I’m pretty sure I mentioned I don’t want to get married in a cathedral.”

"A park, then. My home. Even the fields behind your house. Can’t you smell the mildew? And the lingering odious mix of sweat and cheap cologne from the previous couple? This is where you want to celebrate the convergence of our lives?”

“No, that’s what the hotel room is for.”

The look Hannibal gave him was positively glacial. Will took his hand. Hannibal’s palm was faintly damp, and he squeezed Will’s hand almost crushingly tight. Will kissed him softly. 

"I didn’t want to be stared at like a zoo exhibit while we did this. You can plan whatever you want when we get home. Right now, I just want you.” 

Hannibal leaned down to rest his forehead briefly against Will’s. “And I, you.”


	7. CtoD - will/jackson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from this prompt: _will/jackson? i just thought he was cute and wondered what would happen if they did do the do_
> 
> Jackson is from Consenting to Dream.

“Hey, mm— Um, I brought pizza!” Jackson calls, pushing in through the tide of dogs at the front door. 

The mm is for Mr. Graham, because Will is sleeping with someone who has to consciously remind himself that it’s all right to call him by his first name. Will splashes cold water on his face at the kitchen sink, questions his life choices, and returns to the living room with beer. 

“This okay?” he asks. Jackson likes the kind of beer that Hannibal would drink, if Hannibal drank beer. Will figures it won’t kill him to try something new. This stuff is called Heady Topper. It cost more than the last bottle of wine he bought.

“Oh, that’s awesome! I’ve been wanting to try that. Hey, can we watch Design Star? It’s on in like five minutes.” 

“I don’t have a TV.” 

“You have a computer though, right?” 

Five minutes later, they’re sitting on Will’s bed, eating pizza and drinking (surprisingly good) beer and watching a program on his laptop that reminds Will of the time his father took him to the circus when he was seven. It’s the same unintelligible garble of preternaturally bright colors, suffocating sound, and events that follow no logical progression. Will would honestly prefer a crime scene, but Jackson loves it, and so Will watches him instead. 

His profile is flawless, but the flickering blue light of the screen turns his gold hair to a greenish bronze. Will imagines him as a statue, face perpetually alight with enthusiasm for a world that hasn’t yet seriously hurt him. He’s afraid he might be the one to change that. He’s fond of Jackson, but that’s all. 

“What’s up with the face?” Jackson says. He’s turned away from the screen, even though Will’s pretty sure this is still the show and not an ad. 

“I’ve told you this is a bad idea, right?” 

“Like six times before we did it and three since then, yeah. You want to go for ten?” 

“This is a bad idea.” 

“Feel better?”

Weirdly, with Jackson smiling at him, he actually does. “Not at all,” he says. 

“You like the show?” 

“Not at all.” 

“You should’ve seen it from the beginning of the season, you don’t know what’s going on,” Jackson says, and tells him. 

Will listens to his running commentary and drinks his beer. He puts an arm around Jackson’s shoulders and remembers the way their bodies fit together. It’s still a bad idea, but he’s probably had worse.


	8. CtoD - will distracting hannibal from his reading

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from this prompt: _What does sugar baby Will do when he would like Hannibal to take him to bed, please, but Hannibal is reading TattleCrime on his iPad?_
> 
> A tiny Consenting to Dream ficlet.

Will finished reading over the responses to the last assignment he’d given out. Hannibal was still focused on his iPad on the other end of the couch. He poked his thigh with one toe. 

“Are you done yet?” he said. “What is that, anyway?”

"I’m reading an article on the fast food killer.”

“Who’s still writing about that? That was last year.”

“Freddie Lounds.”

Will groaned. “You’re not reading TattleCrime. Tell me you’re not.” 

Hannibal tilted the iPad until Will could see the unfortunately familiar site layout and colors. 

“You know what she says about her own readership, right?” Will said. “Murderers and people obsessed with murderers?”

“Or people with a professional interest in murderers.”

“Which you do not have.”

"I find it occasionally helpful to have background information on the cases we talk about.”

He poked Hannibal’s leg again.”And year-old dirt on cases I never worked.”

Hannibal sent the iPad aside and caught his ankle. “Feeling neglected?”

“You said you’d tell me when you were done. I didn’t come over here to grade student papers.” 

“Demanding,” Hannibal said, one corner of his mouth turned up.

"I’m just saying, I could’ve done this at home.” Maybe ‘demanding’ was a fair assessment. Hannibal brought it out in him. Had worked to bring it out in him. Will shifted on the sofa. Sometimes, now, he didn’t even notice how he sounded unless Hannibal called him on it. 

“But then you wouldn’t be here.”

"Yeah, well, if you want me to go…” He winced. He’d honestly meant that to sound apologetic. 

Hannibal laughed softly. He tightened his grip on Will’s ankle and pulled until he lay flat on the couch, shirt rucked up by the friction of leather against fabric, off balance, free leg sliding off to brace himself against the floor. Hannibal stretched out over him and dipped his head down to speak into his ear. 

"Anything you want, Will, including my attention, you only need to ask.”

Will flushed all the way down to his chest. A hot twist of embarrassment and pleasure settled in his stomach. “Just take me to bed, that’s all.”

Hannibal kissed his neck and lingered at the base of his throat, breathing against his skin. “It would be my pleasure.”


	9. CtoD will in his pjs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: If you are so inclined, a prompt: Will was upstairs sleeping off a headache when Hannibal's fancy Society Friends arrived. He forgot they were expecting company, so he wanders downstairs in either loose pajama pants that are nearly falling off or totally naked, and stumbles sleepily into Hannibal's arms. He half-notices the people, but DGAF because he knows they all want him and he's Hannibal's prize.

Hannibal pressed a hand to his forehead, and Will pulled away. “I don’t have a fever. It’s just a headache.”

Hannibal studied him. “Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down? My guests will be here soon. I imagine you’d prefer to avoid them in any case. I’ll wake you when they’ve gone, and we can eat.”

Under other circumstances, Will would’ve resented being sent up to bed for a nap like an overtired toddler. As it was, his head hurt so badly that the dark, cool cave of Hannibal’s bedroom was everything he wanted in life.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

Upstairs, he changed into Hannibal’s pajama bottoms, just a little too loose for him, and crawled between the sheets with gratitude. He felt like the headaches had been getting worse lately. It was probably his imagination. His head hit the pillow, and he closed his eyes.

*

He woke in the dark, disoriented, still sleepy, and a little too warm. He pushed off the covers and went to rummage through Hannibal’s medicine cabinet for aspirin. He found none. For a second, he blinked at himself in the mirror. The lights were too bright, and his head still ached.

He shuffled down the stairs, one hand holding onto the pajama bottoms as they threatened to slide down past his hips. “Hannibal?”

“In here, Will.”

Will walked to the doorway of the living room. Hannibal held out his hand to him. Will crossed the rug, soft under his bare feet, and slumped against his side. Hannibal kissed his temple, arm wrapped securely around him.

He was talking to someone. It took Will a few seconds to process that. He lifted his head from Hannibal’s shoulder just enough to squint around the room. Five or six people in dark, tailored clothes stood around with drinks and tiny, fussy canapes. He recognized most of them from the opera. All of them watched him with greater or lesser degrees of subtlety and scandalized delight.

Will had a feeling that should bother him, but it clearly wasn’t bothering Hannibal. He carried on with his conversation and showed no sign of either letting Will go or suggesting he get dressed. As Will let his eyes close again, Hannibal’s hand combed through his hair and rubbed lightly at the back of his neck. Will slid an arm around his waist and pressed himself closer.

These people only knew him as Hannibal’s arm candy anyway. He was just living up to expectation, and it gave him an odd thrill to be seen like this: exposed and displayed, more Hannibal’s property than his date.

“Are they leaving soon?” he said, low in Hannibal’s ear.

“Yes,” Hannibal said decisively. “Quite soon.”

*

Soon enough, the guests began to clear out. Hannibal excused himself to show them to the door, but first he walked Will over to the sofa and left him there with a kiss and Hannibal’s suit jacket draped around his shoulders. It smelled like his aftershave. Will slumped down against the arm of the sofa and closed his eyes.

He woke with Hannibal stroking his hair. Will blinked up at him. “They gone?”

“Yes, they’re gone.”

“Sorry. About, you know.” He didn’t actually feel sorry, though he suspected he might when he woke up properly. Right now, he only felt warm and glad that Hannibal was touching him.

“Don’t be. Not on my account and certainly not on theirs. You’ve given them something to talk about for weeks.”

“You really don’t mind?”

Hannibal bent low to kiss him. “If you could see yourself, then or now, you wouldn’t need to ask.”


	10. lingerie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: _Will wearing lingerie and expensive perfume for Hannibal on Hannibal's birthday, of his own volition? Like maybe as Hannibal's enjoying a glass of wine, seated at his armchair in front of the fire? I just think Will should spend a lot of time in Hannibal's lap ^_^_

"How does it feel?” 

Will shifted in Hannibal’s lap. The straps of the garter belt slid across his thighs. His cock pressed against the lace and silk of the panties, an obvious, hard line. 

“Weird,” he said. “I don’t know. Confining.”

“Not a particularly positive description. And yet you seem to be reacting quite positively.” Hannibal cupped a hand over his cock, and Will swallowed. 

“You keep touching me.”

He had, from the moment Will walked into the room. Mainly his thighs, the stretch of bare skin between the stocking tops and the panties. Even now, as he teased at Will’s erection, his free hand dipped under the lace edge of one stocking. 

“Is that the only reason?” Hannibal said. 

Will let out a slow breath and tipped his head back onto Hannibal’s shoulder. “The way you look at me. It’s always the way you look at me.”

"Am I looking at you differently?"

"No. Not at all.” 

“Do you consider your effort wasted then?” 

“No. I wanted to surprise you.”

Hannibal smiled and kissed him. “And you have.”


	11. corset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: _Yay Will wearing super expensive lingerie that fits him perfectly <3 and being a little embarrassed about how the only purpose of such garments is to wear them to bed! he'd totally wonder if this particular gift was more from Hannibal to himself than to Will. <33 I'm dying to know whether in consenting to dream they'll wind up happy or miserable... looking forward so much to finding out! :0_

Will lifts it out of the box, shimmering gray silk with a pattern of silver-blue vines. Laces and hooks and stiff supports run through it, and it shimmers like water. For a moment, holding it up to the window light, he can’t even tell what it is. When the picture coalesces in his mind into something intended for him to wear and not an odd textile art piece, he almost drops it.

He calls Hannibal, who answers on the first ring. “A corset?” Will says.

"Do you like it?” 

"I have no idea how to answer that.” 

"Have you tried it on?”

"No. It looks complicated." 

"Good. I’d like to assist you.”

"Will it even fit me?” 

“It was made to your measurements.”

"I’m going to look ridiculous.” 

“Not even a token refusal? You must want very badly to be talked into this.” 

Will puts a hand over his eyes. He can feel the heat in his cheeks. He says nothing.

"Shall I tell you how tight I’ll lace it?” Hannibal murmurs. "So your breath comes short, so it cuts it into your skin just a bit.”

“Hannibal…”

“It will leave your nipples exposed. Bare below the waist entirely. A perfect frame. You will look more naked and more clearly on display than you would in nothing at all.” 

Will swallows. “Do you want to come over?” 

“I think you should come here. You’ll be just in time for dinner.”

“Am I staying the night?” 

“Oh, yes. I think you’d better.”


	12. corset 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More corset porn. 
> 
> prompt: _Oh yes, I think you'd better." Please further develop this fic? I need it. I need Hannibal tightening the corset and Will grunting/moaning/breathing heavy while he does it. NEED._

“The supports are steel,” Hannibal tells him. “Once upon a time, they would have been whale baleen. A more organic sort of armor. Perhaps more fitting for you.” 

He smooths the corset against Will’s chest and stomach. Will still has his pants on. They haven’t eaten yet. He’s going to wear it all through dinner, under his clothes. He promised. 

“Doesn’t feel like armor.” 

“What does it feel like?” 

Will breathes carefully. “A reminder,” he says. 

“Of what?”

“You. The way you touch me. It’s like having your hands on me all the time.”

Hannibal’s throat works as he swallows. His fingers slide along the top of the corset and dip down, just under the edge, where it digs into Will’s skin. “Would you wear it to work?” he murmurs. “Could you teach like this? With the memory of my hands on you?”

“Maybe,” Will says. “If it were looser. I feel…” 

“What?”

He shakes his head. Breathless is the word, but he can’t tell if that’s the corset or the way Hannibal is watching him. 

“Is it too tight?” 

“No. I like it.” 

What he likes even better is Hannibal’s avid, greedy stare, the way he slides his hands over the drawn-in curve of Will’s waist again and again. He kisses Will’s throat and down the center of his chest. His tongue flicks hot over one nipple, and Will arches toward him, one hand sliding into his hair. 

When Hannibal pulls back, they’re both hard. Will is panting, each breath cut just a fraction short. “You could lace it tighter if you wanted,” he says, and Hannibal kisses him with a hungry noise that goes straight to Will’s cock, kisses him until he’s more than breathless. 

Dizzy, gasping, he holds tight to Hannibal’s shoulders as he’s shoved against the wall. Hannibal yanks Will’s pants open and pushes them down, repeats the process on himself, and they’re rocking together, smears of fluid marring the corset and Hannibal’s shirt. 

Hannibal takes his wrists in one hand and holds them over his head, and Will swears and thrusts against him. Hannibal jacks them both together, cocks sliding against each other in the tight circle of his fingers. Between the constriction of his breath and the feel of Hannibal pinning him in place, it’s over for Will in seconds. He comes with spots behind his eyes, and Hannibal follows quickly.

They hold onto each other afterward. Hannibal seems to need the support as much as Will does. Their kisses slow gradually. Hannibal’s hands gravitate again to the curve of Will’s waist. 

“It shouldn’t be so affecting,” he says. 

“You’re reshaping me,” Will tells him. “Temporarily, but still. You called it a frame, but it’s more like a brush.” 

“And you are my work of art,” Hannibal murmurs. He kisses Will’s shoulder and up his neck. “Yes. Of course.”


	13. hannibal in the kitchen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: _Will is always so tired, but finds himself accidentally mesmerized by the Hannibal's movements in the kitchen (graceful, powerful, precise). He can't stop staring as Hannibal does the simplest things, such as chopping herbs or seasoning some type of meat. Hannibal notices Will's preoccupation and takes full advantage. As much gratuitous descriptions of Hannibal's movements as you like._

Will sat in the leather armchair in the corner of Hannibal’s kitchen. He held a glass of red wine cupped in his hands without tasting it. Exhaustion covered him so thoroughly that he could barely see past its shroud, and he’d have to drive home in an hour or two. The wine wouldn’t help. 

Hannibal moved from counter to fridge, stove to sink. He followed paths so exact they might have been choreographed. Will could see the trails he left behind in the air, a tangle of afterimages or retinal burns, shades of Hannibal painted in red.

The wine vanished from his hand. Hannibal gave him a cup of coffee instead. Will sat up straighter and took a sip. 

"Sorry," he said. "I’m not good for much tonight. I can go if you want." 

"You are not here to entertain me, Will." Hannibal touched his shoulder lightly and gave him something just short of a smile. "Rather the other way around. You are my guest, after all." 

"Watching you cook is pretty entertaining." 

Hannibal looked amused. “Is it?” 

He moved back to the counter, knife in his hands as if it had always been there, always would be there. Will blinked at the flash of light off the blade and the vibrant green of the herbs under it. 

"It’s like a crime scene," Will heard himself say. Probably not the best way to describe anyone’s cooking, let alone Hannibal’s, but he didn’t look offended. 

"How so?" 

Hannibal pressed the chopped herbs into the meat with short, controlled movements. His fingers flexed, and the tips sank in the pink flesh, nails glistening with moisture. 

Will smiled. “Your design.” 

"Can you see it?" 

He nodded slowly. Snapshots collected behind his eyes. Hannibal at the sink with water cascading over his hands. Bent over to open the oven, the arch of his back, the stretch of bare skin between oven mitts and rolled up sleeves. The cross-step and pivot he made to turn from the stove to the open bottle of wine on the counter. 

"Not as much blood as you are accustomed to," Hannibal said. 

"No, it’s there." He could see it in every surgically deft cut: the thousands that had come before, scalpel leaving a red trail on human skin. He shook himself and rubbed at his eyes. "Can I do something? I’m going to fall asleep if I sit here." 

"Of course," Hannibal said, and he pressed his knife into Will’s hand.


	14. therapy date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> louiselux asked:  
>  _will you write that one scene i want? of will getting himself ready to go and see hannibal for their therapy date. making himself look nice. thank you <3_

Will was released from Chilton’s care on a Monday. His usual appointment with Hannibal was, or had been, on Thursdays. Near enough to the end of the week that he had sometimes looked forward to it as if to the weekend. He’d been more likely to find temporary sanctuary in Hannibal’s office than he had on any so-called day of rest. 

On this particular Thursday, he left his house after lunch, got a haircut at the barbershop in Wolf Trap, and stopped outside afterward in the winter sun. Little things kept demanding his attention: the chill of the air, the piercing sparkle of light off grit embedded in the sidewalk, the smell of cooking food that hadn’t come out of an industrial sized can to be slopped onto a plastic tray. 

At some point, he’d find himself back at Hannibal’s table, but that was a problem for another time. 

For now, he got a slice of pizza and drove home to shower and wash away the tiny bits of hair that clung to his skin and, hopefully, some of the singing tension that settled into his spine when he thought about tonight. 

Clean and dry, he shaved down a bare minimum of stubble. To take it all off would be too obviously manipulative, like buying a new aftershave. He’d go without. This was compromise, not capitulation. Hannibal would believe compromise, would believe Will was prepared to meet him halfway. 

He’d let the man at the barber shop press some kind of styling goop on him, and he ran it through his hair. Hannibal would appreciate the attempt, and at least it would keep it out of his eyes. 

His clothes only needed to be clean, presentable, and probably not plaid, which left him with few enough choices to make the decision relatively simple. Faded red shirt, gray pants, and the new coat and leather gloves he’d bought yesterday. Both were an intentional echo of Hannibal’s style, but obviously inferior, at once subservient and almost offensive. Just as good as you without trying half as hard.

Will looked himself over in the mirror. Everything he wanted to say was there, and Hannibal would see it. Even now, Hannibal was usually the only one who understood what he wanted to say. 

He pressed his hands briefly over his face, arranged his expression into something less telling, and left the house.


	15. human winston

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Are you still accepting prompts? If yes, how about one where Winston is human (has always been or was turned)_

Will sank into his chair on the porch with a glass of scotch and a groan. His back ached, his feet ached, and his pounded with the steady, unstoppable beat of his heart. Winston trotted over and dropped his head on Will’s knee, tongue lolling out. Will scratched his ears. 

Winston gathered himself and made the jump to Will’s lap, where he stood uncertainly, paws four hard points on Will’s thighs. 

"Ow," Will said. He pressed down on Winston’s back. "If you’re staying, lie down. You’re too big to be a lap dog." 

Winston collapsed happily, legs hanging off in all directions. He put his head down and closed his eyes. Will finished off his scotch and watched the moon rise. After a time, he closed his eyes as well. 

He woke with a start when the weight on his lap shifted, sliding, falling, and he reached out and grabbed for Winston before he got his eyes open. No fur. Smooth skin and a startled, human wail. One small fist whacked into his arm. 

Will looked at the boy in his lap, maybe two or three years old, naked, face twisted in confusion and fear. For a minute, that was all he could do. The boy cried, and Will stared. 

"Okay," he said, finally, and pulled him close against his chest. "Okay, let’s get you a blanket at least." 

The dogs followed him inside, Winston conspicuously missing. 

Will dressed the boy in one of his t-shirts, wrapped him in a blanket, and gave him string cheese, which brought the tears to an abrupt halt. He set him down on the bed. “Stay,” he said, since it worked on everyone else in the house. 

He got his gun out of the closet, took it to the shed out back, unloaded it, checked the chamber, and left it locked inside on a high shelf. The clip he locked in the glovebox of his car. He’d given a lot of thought over the years to what it might feel like to lose his mind. This was not a scenario he’d considered. 

The night pressed in around him, starless sky above and winter wind picking off the few remaining leaves. He took a few slow breaths. It could be a simple hallucination, gone when he returned, like Garret Jacob Hobbs. 

It wasn’t. The boy smiled at him from the bed when he got back inside and waved the cheese at him. Will laid a hand on his head and stroked his soft brown hair. When he sat on the edge of the bed, the boy crawled closer and leaned against his side. Will put an arm around him and reached for his phone with the other hand. 

"I’m sorry, I don’t know what time it is," he said, when Hannibal picked up. 

"It’s quite all right, Will. What’s happened?" His voice was rough with sleep. Late, then. 

"Which do you think sounds more likely, that I went to sleep with a dog in my lap and woke up with a kid I’ve never seen before, or that I’m going crazy?" 

Hannibal paused. “Do you feel crazy? Does this feel like one of your hallucinations?” 

"No. It feels real. But that’s how psychosis generally feels." 

"Do you want me to come over?" 

Will closed his eyes. “Yes. Please.” 

*

When Hannibal arrived, a little over an hour later, Will answered the door with the boy in his arms, dozing on his shoulder. Hannibal’s face told him everything he needed to know. He leaned against the doorframe in sheer, dizzying relief. 

"Not crazy, huh?" he said. 

"Certainly, the child appears to be real. Shall I take a look at him?"

Will nodded and bounced the boy a little until he stirred. “Hey,” he said softly, waiting for his eyes to focus on him. “This is my friend Hannibal. He’s going to make sure there’s nothing wrong with you, okay? Don’t be scared.” 

The boy looked at them both with wide eyes when Will set him on the edge of the bed. Hannibal had an old fashioned doctor’s bag with him. He warmed the stethoscope before applying it to the boy’s chest. 

Will caught a glimpse of the bag’s interior, a small row of vials, a pen light, a bottle of pills. “Did you bring that for me?” he asked. 

"You sounded distraught. I thought it best to be prepared." 

The boy sat patiently through Hannibal’s examination, still occasionally mouthing at his string cheese. 

"He appears to be perfectly healthy," Hannibal said. "No sign of abuse or neglect. Well fed, no dehydration. He seems to feel secure in his environment. You woke up and found him?" 

Will told him what had happened. It was a short story. 

"And the dog is nowhere to be found," Hannibal said. 

"He must’ve run off. I don’t know why he would though. Some of the others, maybe, but Winston always sticks close to home."

The boy made the first sound he’d made since his arrival, a sort of questioning gurgle. 

Will and Hannibal looked at each other. 

"Winston?" Hannibal said. 

The same noise. The boy offered Hannibal his string cheese. 

"So we’re both going crazy," Will said. "Great."


	16. bodyswap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _cherishedsaulie asked:_  
>  Prompt: Hannigram bodyswap sex? If that doesn't strike your fancy, I can send in another prompt of you like.
> 
>  
> 
> …There is no sex, only bodyswap. I’m sorry. But there might be more at some point because I find the idea of how Hannibal’s neurochemistry and brain structure might affect Will (and vice versa) really interesting. Like, imagine Will’s empathy is at least partially due to the physical structure of his brain and then imagine Hannibal trying to cope with that.

Will went to sleep on his hard cot in the stale, close air of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He woke up in a wide bed, in the middle of an expanse of smooth, white sheets. A shaft of sunlight slid through the gap in thick, silk curtains. Somewhere outside, a bird sang.

His dreams had always been vivid, but vivid in the way of dreams: hyper-real, over saturated, too much for the waking world. This wasn’t that. He pinched his arm anyway, and then he sat up and slapped himself in the face. It stung.

He stood and found the bathroom, used the toilet, splashed icy water on his face and neck. He looked in the mirror. Hannibal Lecter looked back at him.

Possibilities shifted behind his (Hannibal’s) eyes; he could almost see them move. He had finally lost his mind. He’d been injured and fallen into coma. This was some post-hypnotic suggestion Hannibal had implanted. This was real.

He turned, and though there was only one face in the mirror, though the reflection matched him motion for motion, he expected to see Hannibal standing behind him. He was alone.

He went back into the bedroom and pulled on a dark red sweater that had been left slung across the back of a chair. Slippers waited under the chair, and he put them on as well. The whisper of soft soles across wood was the only sound as he moved through the house to the back door. He opened it and stepped out into the garden.

After a moment, he kicked off the slippers and stood with his bare feet in the frost-pale grass, breath steaming. Snowdrops pushed up in clumps of white and green around the garden. He breathed in air that didn’t smell of sweat or bleach or fear.

He couldn’t have said how long he stood there with his feet going slowly numb and the sting of the sun too bright in his eyes. Prison eliminated extremes.

Inside the house, the phone rang.

Will found it on the kitchen counter and looked at the caller ID. Frederick Chilton. Of course. If he were Hannibal…the equation had to balance.

"Hello?" he said, and heard Hannibal’s voice, even his accent, not as strong as usual but apparently controlled as much by the habits of the tongue as by the mind.

"Hannibal," Chilton said, and took a breath. "I’m sorry. I know it’s early."

"It’s not a problem, Frederick. What can I do for you?"

"It’s Will Graham. He wants to see you. He’s insistent."

"Has he said why?"

"No. But he’s agitated enough that I had to threaten to have him sedated."

Agitated. Will smiled to himself. “I’m afraid I have appointments this morning, but I’ll be happy to stop by after lunch.”

After he’d rung off with Chilton, the unpleasant thought occurred that he might actually have appointments this morning. And of course Hannibal couldn’t keep his appointments on his phone or his iPad like a normal person. The appointment book lived at his office.

Will showered and washed his hair with no one watching him for the first time in months. He shaved and dressed. Plaid suit and all. He picked the first shirt and tie that came to hand. They seemed to go together as well as anything Hannibal had chosen deliberately.

He drove Hannibal’s Bentley to his office, found his appointment book, and canceled everything for the next week on the pretext of a minor, unspecified emergency. With that done, he sat at Hannibal’s desk, put his face in his hands, and laughed until he had tears in his eyes, until it wasn’t really laughter anymore.

*

Just after one, he was shown into the privacy room at the hospital. He sat across from his own body, wrists chained as usual and secured to the table. His own eyes watched him and gave nothing away.

"Hello, Will," he said. "I understand you wanted to see me."

Hannibal’s mouth twitched. “Hello, Dr. Lecter. Good of you to come.”

His voice was a strange thing to hear, outside of the confines of his own skull. The tone was flatter than his usual, the way Hannibal spoke when he was displeased with someone, but Will could also hear the faint remnants of his own accent, the softer shape words took in Georgia and Louisiana. He’d dropped it years ago, but, as with Hannibal’s body, the tongue remembered.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"I think you know what I want."

"Dr. Chilton said you were agitated earlier." He watched a shadow of discomfort cross Hannibal’s face. "Has something happened?"

"In a manner of speaking." Hannibal paused and folded his hands together. The chains rattled against the table. He looked down, regrouping, and then back up and straight at him. Direct in the way that Hannibal was always direct. "I need your help, Dr. Lecter. Please."

That last please kicked Will right in the stomach. He understood in a rush of heat exactly why Hannibal had been buying into the detente Will had been selling him. There was something nearly obscene about having Hannibal like this. About Hannibal needing him.

"I’ll do anything I can," he said.

"Is that true? Even after I have cast suspicion upon you?"

"Of course. I don’t like seeing you in here, Will. You know that." 

"Then you would agree that it’s in both our best interests to make my stay here as brief as possible?"

"That’s not up to me," Will said. He saw Hannibal’s dawning comprehension that was Will was as lost in this as he was and nearly rolled his eyes. "I don’t know what made you think otherwise," he added.

"You know Chilton doesn’t monitor this room."

"I know he’s not legally allowed to."

"He has complained that it’s the only room in the facility where he is blind and deaf."

Will sat back in his chair. “Are you suggesting something?”

Hannibal tried to mirror his position, but the chains were too short, as Will knew from experience. It could be managed, but Hannibal would have to stretch his arms out almost straight. It put the cuffs on display and made it impossible for anyone in the room to forget they were there. Will hadn’t been comfortable with it in the beginning either.

Hannibal leaned forward again, left hand curled over his right wrist. “The most rational explanation is a folie a deux,” he said.

Will watched him for the space of three heartbeats. The words were already there in his head, decision already made. He let Hannibal’s own faint smile settle on his face.

"I’m sorry, Will," he said. "I don’t know what you mean."

Hannibal watched him through narrowed eyes. “Don’t you?”

"Certainly, the two of us share a form of madness. Most of our friends believe that my continued faith in you and in the possibility of some rapprochement between us is folly, and yet I cannot help but persist. I think you have come to accept that your perceptions of me have been distorted by your illness and your mental distress. Perhaps we both cling too hard to our delusions."

It was what Hannibal would’ve said. Maybe not word for word, but close enough. Will knew him, how he spoke, how he thought.

Hannibal used his face and voice as he might play an instrument, but not this face, not this voice. He had no experience in striving to be someone else. Even so, Will only saw the doubt in his eyes because he had seen it so often in the mirror.

Will left him there a few minutes later, still feigning confusion. He’d have to come back, have to admit the truth, but after what Hannibal had done to him, a day or two to nurse his doubt seemed more than fair.


	17. bodyswap 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being in Hannibal's body has both positives and negatives.

Hannibal’s horrifically acute sense of smell caught up with Will in a McDonald’s drive through. He’d needed something solid and steadying after his visit to the BSHCI, and a cheeseburger and fries had seemed ideal—right up until he caught the scent of ancient grease, exhaust fans, and cleaning fluid on the air. He pulled out of the line, parked the Bentley, and felt gently nauseated for a minute. No wonder Hannibal was so picky about his food. 

The BSHCI had hadn’t been a treat either, but he’d expected it to stink. It always did. Now that he was conscious of it, even the outside air seemed to swim in car exhaust and other less identifiable chemical scents. 

He retreated to Hannibal’s house and made himself a grilled cheese with brie and some kind of cheese that looked like a brown and white mosaic. Presumably there was some connection between Hannibal’s sense of taste and smell, because it was the best thing he’d ever put in his mouth. 

Afterward, he wrapped himself up in Hannibal’s coat and walked. And walked. Because he could. The cold bit at him, and he savored it. 

He wanted to see his dogs. He could drive to Alana’s house right now and do that. Except that they wouldn’t know him. He would smell like Hannibal, and they would be happy enough to see him—Hannibal always brought treats—but they wouldn’t know him. And that might be worse than not seeing them at all. 

And then there was Alana, who knew Hannibal better than any of Will’s friends. If she wanted to reminisce about the old days, he was screwed. It would be safer to see almost anyone else.

He reached a small park and sat on a swing. The chain squeaked as he rocked forward and back. He could see Jack or Beverly. He could behave in ways that would make them doubt Hannibal. Easily. And then what? 

Investigation, discovery, and he’d be back behind bars again. And Hannibal would be free. 

This—whatever it was—might wear off tomorrow morning or it might last a year or it might last forever. What he needed was to know how and why it had happened, and he had no idea where to start. And, worse news, he didn’t think Hannibal did either. 

Hannibal’s phone rang. He planted his feet in the snow covered gravel and skidded to a stop before he answered. 

It was Jack. "Dr. Lecter, glad I caught you. Busy?"

"Not terribly. Is there something I can do for you, Jack?" 

"I’ve got something I’d like you to look at, if you don’t mind. We could use your help." 

So goddamn respectful. Will remembered Jack ambushing him in his classroom, interrogating him about his mental stability, leaning in close to push up his glasses. All but dragging him down to the BAU to look at dead girls pinned to a board. 

And with Hannibal, it was _if you don’t mind, if you’re not busy, we could use your help._

He agreed, because it would look strange to refuse, and hung up. He couldn’t get away, even by stealing someone else’s life. 

Afterward, he sat for a moment with his face in his hands, but the expected swirl of dread and mental fragmentation didn’t come. His thoughts remained clear and calm. His hands were steady. A distinct lack of cold sweat on the back of his neck. 

He walked slowly back toward Hannibal’s house to get the Bentley. He thought of mirror neurons and the structure of their respective brains. He wondered how Hannibal was faring with his.


	18. bodyswap 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal wakes up in the BSHCI.

Hannibal woke to the sound of screaming. He sat up in a bed that wasn’t his. A cot, with rough blankets and rougher sheets, and the powerful smell of ammonia and overcooked vegetables. It was the smell of the orphanage, and the screaming was not out of place. 

His heart rocked against the walls of his chest and only started to calm when he saw his own hands in the dim light: adult hands, lined at the knuckles, clearly veined on the back. Not a child’s. Likewise, his feet reached to the end of the cot and very nearly over the edge. 

He took several careful breaths. The screaming cut off abruptly with a clash of metal and a shouted command (in English): "Shut the hell up, Murchison. You’ll get your breakfast when everyone else does. Making that noise won’t get it ready any faster." 

Hannibal knew these hands. Not a child’s, but also not his. Will’s hands. He touched his face and felt Will’s stubble with the peculiar whorl on one cheek that left one patch of skin almost bare. He felt Will’s hair, longer than his own. Longer than Will’s had been, before he was incarcerated. 

Murchison started screaming again. It didn’t matter to Hannibal—how could it? He did not know or care for this man. But these were noises he recognized, from the orphanage, from earlier in his childhood. They were the torments of the damned, and they did not amuse him as they should. The sound seized hold of something in his stomach and pulled until Hannibal thought he might be sick. 

He put his feet on the floor and his head down, his hands over his ears. 

Eventually, the screams decreased in frequency and volume and then died away, like ambulance sirens receding into the distance. Sweat cooled on the back of Hannibal’s neck. He pulled the blanket around his shoulders. How long would it be until morning? There were no clocks in this place. Nor would there be any sunlight. 

A shadow stopped by his cell. "Mr. Graham? You okay?" 

"Quite well, thank you," Hannibal said. No, that wasn’t right. 

"You sure? You don’t sound good."

"I’m fine." That was what Will would say. And since he was wearing Will’s hands and face and hair, he ought to sound like Will. 

"Murchison will keep quiet now. He’s sedated." 

"What was the source— What was his problem?" 

"The usual, you know. Sorry. I know it bothers you. I just came on shift, and Keats didn’t know what to do with him." 

Hannibal looked toward the bars. He recognized the man. Brown. Matthew Brown. He had taken Hannibal in to see Will, had walked with a saunter and instructed him on procedure with a manner just short of condescension. Hannibal hadn’t liked him. 

"Thank you," he said, even though Will wouldn’t have. Will would have nodded and turned away, but Will was often rude himself. And Hannibal was unfortunately grateful. 

Brown smiled at him. "No prob, Mr. Graham. Try to get some more sleep, okay? It’s a couple hours yet till breakfast." He walked off with that same strut. The gates at the end of the hall opened and closed behind him. 

Hannibal lay back down on the cot and rearranged the blanket. Breakfast in two hours. It was likely either at seven or eight, which meant that it was five or six now. Judging by the silence in the cells and the pull of exhaustion in his body, probably five. But then Will was often tired. He wanted precision. He would ask Brown the time when he came back with breakfast. 

Until then, he would sleep. Perhaps when he woke, the world would be set right.


	19. weegee will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hannibal/Will where they both work at the same newspaper/magazine._
> 
>  
> 
> In which Will is basically Weegee.

Will heard Freddie’s voice and heels coming down the hall. 

"If you turn on the lights, it’ll be the last thing you do," he called. 

"Chill, Graham." She pushed someone ahead of her into the dim, red-orange light of Will’s basement darkroom. "Hannibal, this is Will Graham. I’m sure you’ve heard stories. Will, this is Hannibal Lecter. He got fired from the Post for— Well, he can tell you. I want you to take him out with you next time." 

"I work alone." 

"A picture is not literally worth a thousand words or I would never employ writers. Take him with you." 

"You remember last time." 

She sighed. “Take him with you, and I’ll cough up for the fifteen rolls of infrared film you tried to expense.” 

He hesitated. “And the filter?” 

"And the filter." 

"Okay." 

"Fantastic. Have fun, you two." 

She retreated toward the bank of elevators and left Will and Hannibal alone in the dark. 

Will transferred a print from the developer to the stop bath. “Agitate that,” he said, and turned to switch off his enlarger. “Gently. What did you get fired for?” 

"I was told my last article on the Chesapeake Ripper read like an art review. My editor saw it as an ongoing problem." 

"I read that. Most art critics aren’t that complimentary." 

"It was an accurate description of the scene. You still work exclusively in film? I’d heard rumors, but I didn’t believe them." 

"That’s why I work for Freddie. She doesn’t care how I do it as long as I get the pictures. You have a car?" 

"Yes." 

"Get it. We’re going out as soon as I get these in the wash. Meet me out front." 

In the car, Will loaded his camera with Ilford 3200. Freddie wouldn’t like it, but he wanted the grain. Near sunset, they walked into a cheap motel room a few minutes ahead of the local police. 

"How did you know?" Hannibal asked. 

Will shrugged and knelt to line up his shot, eye-level with the dead man in the bathtub. Blank eyes stared into Will’s lens. Will clicked the shutter in time with the echo of the mangled heart in the man’s chest. 

"I hear things," he said. 

Hannibal stood against the wall and watched him work. “Do you see things as well?” he asked. 

Will looked up at him slowly. “Sometimes. Is that going to be a problem for you?” 

Hannibal smiled. “Not at all, Will. I’m looking forward to it.”


	20. sock drawer kittens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: _your tags under that post with hannibal and the cat killed me. Bring me back to life with a little drabble about it, pleaseee_
> 
> [The post in question](http://emungere.tumblr.com/post/108209872243/everydayhannibal-hannibal-lector-finding-a-cat).

The cat had been an impulse born of watching other living things suffer and die in the snow. He had brought her inside before work, out of a cutting wind and sub-zero temperatures that threatened to dip even further as the day progressed. By the time he left work, he had almost forgotten about her. Now, barefoot and shirt unbuttoned, he opened a drawer in search of dry socks and found instead a much thinner cat and four very small kittens. 

They were still wet, but mostly clean, which was more than could be said for the contents of his sock drawer. The mother had moved them away from the mess of fluid and at least one remaining placenta. Hannibal scooped it up along with the socks it had touched, took it downstairs, and put it outside in the trash. 

He stood in the cold for a moment. Snow drifted down and lodged in his hair and eyelashes. He found he didn’t regret his rescue, but he certainly didn’t have any urge to keep a cat, let alone four newborn kittens. He’d meant to take her to the shelter in the morning. Now, another idea dropped quietly into his mind as if it had always been there. 

*

The drive to Will’s house took longer than usual as the snow turned the highway into a smear of white and gray. The mother was silent, but her kittens mewed constantly, tiny, high-pitched voices in the passenger’s seat next to him. He’d spread a blanket over the drawer, which did nothing at all the muffle the sound. 

"It’s only a little further," he said. The mews quieted just for a moment. He paused. They started up again. "Are you warm enough?" Another lull in the minute, piercing noise. "I’m taking you to see a friend," he said. 

Another mile or so rolled past. Whiteout conditions. He switched on the radio and was advised to stay home. The kittens didn’t like the man on the radio, but they seemed fond of Mozart. 

"He’s a kind man," Hannibal said. Will was kind, of course. That was nothing more than an observable fact, but he could have made a list of the traits he valued in Will that stretched from Baltimore to Wolf Trap, and he would not have thought kindness had a place among them. 

He parked at last in Will’s driveway and hurried through the snow to his front porch. He could not seem to find the appropriate expression, and he was still trying to put himself in order when Will opened the door. 

"Dr. Lecter." Will raised his eyebrows and stepped aside. "Please, come in." 

Hannibal set the box down on the bed. The kittens had fallen silent. Will lifted the blanket, and Hannibal watched his face soften as he sat down next to them. One of them made its squeaky little mew, and he touched its head with a careful finger. 

"Where did you get them?"

"As you see. I found them in situ." 

Will blinked and transferred his attention to Hannibal. "In your socks?"

"I let the mother in before I left for work this morning. I was unaware of her condition." 

"No good deed goes unpunished," Will said, but he was smiling. "They made kind of a mess in here."

"Yes."

"What do you want me to do about it? You could’ve taken them to the shelter."

"It’s closed."

"I’m not really a cat person," Will said, but the mother let him scratch under her chin and purred at his touch. She’d hissed at Hannibal’s attempts to clean up the space around her. Will stroked over her back and tucked the blanket in around them. "Did you give her water?"

"I brought them here."

Will looked amused. "I’ll get some water. You could put them down by the fireplace. It’ll be warm. The dogs won’t bother them." 

Hannibal set them down as instructed. The dogs came over to sniff and peer over the edge of the drawer. Only one got close enough for the mother to deliver a swat on the nose, and the dog quickly retreated. 

Will sat next to Hannibal on the hearth and reached over him to set a bowl of water within the mother’s reach. The position pressed his body along Hannibal’s side, and he stayed there to watch her drink. 

"When she’s done, maybe we can get a towel in there instead of the socks." 

"You can try. I don’t think she’s fond of me." 

"You’re not fond of her." 

"She ruined half my socks." 

"So you drove her through a snowstorm to my door instead of dumping her at the shelter in the morning." 

Hannibal watched him gently remove a sock that the mother had sunk her claws into. He sighed a little and stood. "Have you eaten?"

"Nope." 

"Shall I cook?"

"Be my guest. Make something for her, too."

He left Will picking out socks one by one and easing the mother’s fear with his hands and voice. Will’s kitchen provided chicken and spinach and lemons, which was more than Hannibal had hoped for. He should’ve brought supplies. He had a half-prepared heart in his refrigerator that would now go to waste.

Cooking, even with more mundane ingredients, set his mind at ease. Wind beat snow against the windows with a steady thrum. Oil sizzled in the pan. He sliced the lemons paper thin. 

"You’ll have to stay the night," Will said, over his shoulder. "The weather’s only getting worse, and they won’t plow out here till morning." 

"Thank you for the invitation."

"That sounds like a prelude to a refusal." 

"No. Only gratitude." He paused and looked down at the chicken. "Would it be foolish to ask for capers?"

Will smiled at him. "You might need to lower your expectations for one night, Dr. Lecter." 

"And in the morning? What will you do with them?" 

"Talk to my vet. See if she knows anyone who wants kittens. They should be pretty easy to find homes for, and they can stay here till they’re old enough."

"And the mother?"

"I’ll try to find someone who wants her, too."

"And if you can’t?"

"She can stay. One more mouth to feed won’t be much trouble." 

"Not if you make your guests cook for you, certainly."

"Oh, you want me to cook? I’ve got SpaghettiOs in the cupboard." 

"I suppose it’s only fair I earn my bed for the night," Hannibal said, well aware that no one needed to earn shelter in Will’s home. Kind. The word came back to him again as he juiced lemons to tenderize the chicken. 

"They’re all asleep. Speaking of beds. Do you want to see?"

Hannibal didn’t, particularly, but he glanced at Will bent over the drawer and smiling softly and dried his hands anyway. He came to stand by the hearth. 

Will looked up at him. "She’s lucky she found you."

Hannibal shook his head a little. "No. She’s lucky to be here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am prolly not gonna be answering comments for this, my hands have been hurting a lot lately, but I still appreciate them and thanks <3


	21. kindergarten teacher Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and his class full of tiny future serial killers.

Will put away the big jars of paste and started trying to account for all the markers. Outside, he could hear Peter negotiating an argument over the swings. 

A hand tugged at his pants, and he looked down. Matthew was looking up at him with large, worried eyes. 

"Mr. Graham, Hannibal and Tobias are fighting again." 

Fantastic. "Where?" Matthew pointed toward the back of the building. Of course. Where Peter wouldn’t see them. "Thank you for telling me," Will said. "You go back out and play now, okay?" 

Matthew ran off, and Will went out the back of the classroom, through the forest of tiny coats and boots, mostly ignored now that the day had warmed and the sun was out. He tripped over a pink and purple scarf, said, "Fudge," forcefully, and wondered briefly if he’d ever swear properly again. 

The scene outside nearly drew a much stronger word from him. Tobias had Hannibal pinned on the damp grass, and they were both flailing at each other, chubby fists and sharp knees and, in Hannibal’s case, teeth. Tobias was bigger, nearly a year older, and always came out on top, but it never stopped Hannibal from trying. 

Will whistled like he would for his dogs, and both boys froze. "That’s enough," he said. "You two get in here right now. Playtime’s over for you." 

Hannibal and Tobias looked at each with inexplicable mutual loathing. "He started it," they said in unison. 

"I don’t care who started it, I’m finishing it," Will heard himself say. His father speaking through his mouth. Unnerving. But usually, when Will’s father had said that, it had meant a cuff on the head and bed without supper. Time out was probably a better deterrent. There was nothing Hannibal and Tobias hated more than being bored. 

Will sat them on opposite sides of the room, checked with Peter that everything was okay outside, and got out the first aid kit. 

"M’fine," Tobias said, stubborn and not quite sniffling. 

"Show me your hands, please," Will said. 

Tobias did. Two knuckles were puffy, but no skin broken. At least Hannibal hadn’t managed to bite him anywhere this time. Will got him ice. 

"Please don’t tell Mama," Tobias said. 

"You know I have to," Will said gently. "You’re both good boys. I don’t know why you do this. You want to tell me why you got mad at Hannibal?" 

"He’s mean," Tobias mumbled, which was all he would ever say. 

It was too bad. They’d played together so well the first day. Their parents knew each other. They took music lessons with the same teacher. They’d both been fascinated by the decomposing squirrel at the edge of the playground. Will had been so hopeful that Hannibal would finally have a friend, and then it had all fallen apart. 

He sighed, left Tobias, and took Hannibal’s hand to lead him into the boy’s room. Tobias had caught his nose a good clip, and Hannibal was dripping blood, snot, and tears down his chin. Most of the time, the way he talked, anyone would’ve thought he was too old for kindergarten, but he was in fact only barely four, and at times like this it showed. 

Will sat him on the counter and cleaned him up as gently as he could. Hannibal took huge, shaky breaths and made angry faces and, finally, when he couldn’t quite stop crying and be a big boy, burst into frustrated tears over that instead. Will picked him up and let him sniffle into his shoulder until he calmed down. 

"What about you?" Will said. "Want to tell me why you and Tobias can’t get along? Did he say something to you?" 

Will thought it was more likely that Hannibal had said something to Tobias, but he didn’t want to be unfair. It was hard not to be unfair with Hannibal, one way or the other. Will knew he shouldn’t have favorites, but that had become a lot more difficult since Hannibal had joined his class, despite his behavioral issues. 

"I don’t like him," Hannibal said. 

"That’s what you said about Matthew, too. And Abel."

Hannibal nodded. "Don’t like them."

"Who do you like?" 

"You an’ Mischa. And Cesar." 

"Cesar?"

"He’s my horse. He’s really big, and I feed him apples, and he can carry me and Mischa together. I make sure she doesn’t fall off." 

Will sighed inwardly and set him down. "You’re a good big brother, Hannibal. I just wish you’d try a little harder to be good at school."

"I’m very good at school. I can read and I know all my times tables already." 

"And that’s great, but school isn’t just about what you know. Learning how to get along with other kids is important too."

"No, that’s stupid," Hannibal said decisively, which was about what Will had expected. 

He led Hannibal back to his time out corner and studied the two boys. He’d talk to Tobias’s mother. Probably things would be fine for a week or two. But then Hannibal would do something or say something, and the feud would be on again. Talking to Hannibal’s parents did no good. Hannibal listened to them politely, nodded in the right places, and then did whatever he liked. The only person with any influence on him was his baby sister, who was barely old enough to talk and unlikely to tell him off for fighting at school. 

"Okay," Will said. "You guys have forfeited playtime for the next month. You know what forfeited means?"

They sullenly confirmed that they did. 

"Good. Peter can take the other kids out to play and have a nice time, and you two can stay in here with me and help me pick up after crafts. Seems like I can’t trust you out of my sight, so I’ll have to keep an eye on you."

"You could let me go out," Tobias said. "I won’t do anything bad if Hannibal isn’t there being _stupid_."

"You were both fighting, you both get punished. That’s how it works." 

In a movie, it would lead to undying friendship between them. In real life, Will suspected, he’d have to watch them every second to prevent further bloodshed. And they had a field trip to the zoo coming up. Will rubbed at his forehead and felt a growing ache behind his eyes. Maybe he could ask Tobias’s mother to chaperone. Or get Hannibal a leash.


	22. will in hannibal's basement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: http://emungere.tumblr.com/post/118636033187/hed-probably-have-will-locked-in-his-basement

Hannibal stroked Will’s cheek. Still in the grip of the sedatives, Will barely stirred, not even a flutter of his eyelashes, just the slightest turn of his head toward the warmth of Hannibal’s hand.

“I can’t keep you here,” Hannibal told him. “They’re looking for you already.”

*

Will woke in darkness. He could hear the drip of water and the echo of a vast space. And footsteps. He stretched out his hand, searching for a weapon.  
“Will?”

“Hannibal? Is that you? What– What’s going on?”

“How much do you remember?” Hannibal asked.

“I don’t remember anything. I was home. I was in bed.” His head ached with a dull throb. He winced and lay back on the pillow while Hannibal arranged the covers around him.

“Then I’m afraid this may come as a shock to you. Shade your eyes, please.”

The lights came up, and Will stared. Vaulted stone ceilings and arches stretched far out past the dim light provided by a few electric lanterns.

“Where are we?” he whispered. The stones caught his words and bounced them from wall to wall until they were drowned by silence.

“The cellars of Lecter Castle in Lithuania. The world is a different place now, but we’re safe for the moment. I’ll explain everything.”

*

Will had a head injury. That much he knew for sure because he could feel the lump on the side of his head and he'd seen the blood on the bandages when Hannibal changed them. He knew they were underground. The temperature was stable, and water dripped almost constantly from the old stone walls. More than that, he had the sensation of earth bearing in on him, not as a threat, no hint of claustrophobia, but undeniably there. He knew the place was vast. If it wasn't Lecter Castle, it was somewhere equally old and solid and immense. 

That was what he knew from his own observation, and it wasn't much. 

Hannibal had told him other things. He had spoken of an engineered virus, of riots, of a breakdown in the social order. He said Will had been injured trying to help Jack and Bella get out of the city. He said he'd found them dead and Will unconscious in Jack's house. He said he didn't know what had happened. He'd taken Will on the last flight out of Dulles. 

Will couldn't remember any of it. 

His head ached. Even if Hannibal had been willing for either of them to set foot above ground, the thought of so much light made him feel ill. Instead, he roamed the cellars with a lantern and a growing sense of walking through a dream. 

His thoughts covered the same territory again and again: the situation as described was unbelievable, something out a horror movie, but why would Hannibal lie? 

Will always stopped there. He could feel the answer just out of reach, and he didn't pursue it. The best he could hope for was to wake up before it began to pursue him.


	23. will naked on hannibal's sofa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: http://emungere.tumblr.com/post/118525526772/could-you-pretty-please-write-a-little-something

Will dreamed of Hannibal most nights. Sometimes he dreamed of the rain, of the knife, of Hannibal’s arms holding him tight. More often, his dreams were extensions of the lost past, conversations they’d never had, places they’d never been.

Tonight, they sat in his office, Hannibal in his chair, Will on the edge of his desk. He could hear the fire and smell it and feel its heat. He felt Hannibal’s eyes on him too.

The desk faded away. Hannibal’s notes twisted in the flames. Will saw faces there that he didn’t recognize, past patients who made it out of Hannibal’s care more or less intact.

The fire stole out onto the floor and nudged at his feet like a puppy. Hannibal stood by his side, both of them naked, flames climbing up to their knees. Hannibal’s hands were warm on Will’s skin. His mouth burned hotter than the fire.

Will had gone to sleep in his own bed, but he woke the next morning in Hannibal’s office, still naked, still warmed by Hannibal’s touch. The wound across his stomach ached. The suit jacket draped over him still smelled of Hannibal’s cologne.


	24. drunk hannibal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: Could you write some drunk Hannibal interacting with (drunk or sober, your pick) Will?

Hannibal went back to his office after he saw Bedelia. He wasn't ready to go home. He'd had a glass of wine with her, and he had another by himself, sitting across from an unoccupied chair. And another. He could not say he was lost in thought. He wasn't thinking at all. Memories came to him, but he did not walk in the past. If anything, it walked in him. 

A knock on the door called him back. He started to rise and found himself unsteady. "Come in," he called. He sank down against the cushion and raised the glass once more. 

Will hesitated in the doorway. "I saw your light," he said. 

"Were you only passing by?" 

Will's shrug was a jerk of his head and one hunched shoulder. "I was driving. It's late."

"I don't know the time," Hannibal said. 

"Past ten." Will took a step into the room and then another. "Are you okay?" 

Hannibal examined the ruby veil left behind on the glass. "Do you find it easier to confide in me as a friend than you would if we had no personal connection?" he said. 

Will moved to his desk and leaned against it, eyes on the bottle of wine. "I think you know the answer to that," he said. 

"Indulge me. I would like to be indulged tonight."

"Was this full when you started?" Will said. He flicked the bottle with his thumbnail. 

"It was. Will you have some?" 

Will poured himself half a glass and sat down. Hannibal smiled to see him there, to see the chair occupied as it should be, to see their legs stretched out toward each other. 

"Yes, I find it easier," Will said. 

"I wonder if I would." 

"You could try it and see." 

Hannibal tipped his glass back for the last mouthful. He held the wine against his tongue before he swallowed it down. "Will you build a fire for us?" he asked. 

"Am I still indulging you?" Will asked, but he rose as he said it and moved toward the fireplace. 

Hannibal laid his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. "More than you know," he said.


	25. sex tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: Hello! :) Could you please write a little something where Hannibal cries during sex with Will? *offers first-born*
> 
> Thanks to louiselux for the idea for this one.

It all comes to an end in a dusty police station in the Italian countryside. Will walks in with Hannibal’s unconscious body slung over his shoulder. There’s a lot of shouting.

Eventually, he gets them to call Inspector Pazzi. Eventually, they lock Hannibal up. He’s coming to by then, the drugs wearing off. Eventually, the sun sets. It’s a kaleidoscope of unnatural brilliance, broken open across the hills.

The station is not manned overnight. They explain this to him with gestures and impatient looks. Will just nods. He’s staying. He’ll stay until Hannibal is in FBI custody or until he’s forcibly removed, whichever comes first.

They look at him like he’s crazy, give him the keys to the cell, and lock the door behind them.

*

“Are you waiting for a sign?” Hannibal asks. His throat is dry, and his voice comes out in a bitter rasp. Will offers him water, a fearless hand extended between the bars.

“A sign to do what? Let you go?”

“No. I know you won’t do that.”

“Then what do you expect from me?”

“The cage Mason put us in was barely big enough for one, but we survived it. Is this cage too good for you? We have only hours left together.”

Will’s expression is flat, and it stays flat, even while he collects water for them, lets himself in, locks the door, and tosses the keys out of reach. “So we’re together,” he says.

Hannibal reaches for him, and Will comes without hesitation into his arms.

“I’ll go back for Mason,” Will says.

“We could have done that together. Why didn’t we?”

“Because I need to survive you,” Will says quietly. “And it has come to my attention that you are not going to help me do that.”

“If you kill him yourself, you won’t be able to blame it on me.”

“I never blamed my crimes on you, Hannibal.”

Hannibal turns him and presses him against the wall, Will’s back to the cinder block so that he has nowhere to go. So that, for now, he can’t escape. The present moment is all that ever truly matters.

“I would have given you so much more than this,” Hannibal says.

Will slides a thumb over the angle of his cheek and kisses him. “You’re giving me exactly what I want.”

“A fleeting tryst in another cage?”

“A first time and a last time. A moment to remember.”

Hannibal kisses him too hard for that. A bitter taste lingers in his mouth. He lets his teeth cut sharply into Will’s lip. Will pulls at his belt and zipper. They bare each other, shirts pushed up, the rough line of Will’s scar against Hannibal’s skin.

They stand for a long time exchanging desperate, hungry kisses, Will’s hand around their cocks almost an afterthought until Hannibal rakes his nails down Will’s back and sends his hips rocking forward.

Will strokes them both, and the the skin of his palm grows damp. He presses his cheek to Hannibal’s. His breath comes in soft, damp puffs.

Hannibal hears his words again to the rough rhythm of his fist: a first time and a last time. He feels his heartstrings snap one by one and his heart sag low in his chest. He says Will’s name, but there is no air behind it. He closes his eyes, and tears spill down his cheeks as he comes.


	26. will at bedelia's house

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: I'm sure that if Will was at Bedelia's place, he wouldn't have let Hannibal get dressed. I'm not saying you should totally write it, but...

Abigail stood in a corner of the kitchen, hugging herself as if she were cold. They could both hear Jack in the pantry. They could both hear sirens in the distance.

“Are we going?” she said. “We have to go.”

Hannibal looked toward the door one more time. Will wasn’t coming. “I’m going,” he said. “You will stay here. Blame it all on me. They will be only too willing to believe you.”

He walked out, past Alana lying on the sidewalk, and turned up his collar against the rain.

*

Bedelia unlocked her front door and became aware almost immediately of another presence in the house. She took out her gun and held it by her side.

A figure stepped out of the shadows. “Dr. Du Maurier. Good to see you again.”

She stopped. “Will Graham. I was expecting someone else.”

“So was I. You might want to leave before he gets here.”

“I tried,” she said. “I want you to know that. I tried to get him to reconsider what he was doing with you.”

“There was never any chance of that,” he said.

“I realize that now.”

Bedelia weighed her options. She walked out of her house and locked the door behind her.

*

Will had almost given up by the time he heard the car. He slipped out the back door and waited in the yard, in the rain. He could see Hannibal in silhouette through the windows. After a few minutes, Will stepped back inside and heard the shower running.

He waited.

Hannibal was in there for a long time. When he emerged, he was still damp, towel pressed to his face. Will took the safety off his gun and saw Hannibal stiffen at the tiny click. He looked up, and his whole face changed.

“Will.”

“Hannibal.”

“I waited for you.”

“I know. That’s why I didn’t come. I told you to leave,” Will said.

“You knew I wouldn’t.” Hannibal looked down at himself. “May I get dressed?”

“You may not. Come here.”

Hannibal dropped the towel and walked slowly across the room. Will set the gun down on the bed.

“You asked me to go with you,” Will said. “Was that when you knew?”

“Before that. I smelled Ms. Lounds on you.”

“And you knew I hadn’t killed her.”

“Yes. But the meat–”

“It was Randall Tier.”

Hannibal looked down at him. “I don’t imagine the FBI will approve of that gambit.”

“This was never about the FBI. It was about us.” Will put a hand on his bare hip and moved it down his thigh. “What did you want from me, Hannibal? What life did you envision for us when you asked me to run away with you?”

“A life together. In every way.”

“Maybe you should ask me again.”

Hannibal just looked at him, expression almost but not quite a perfect blank.

“Yes,” Will said. He stood and drew Hannibal against him, hands on the naked skin of his back, still warm from the shower. Will kissed him and was grateful to find he didn’t taste of blood.


	27. sea cave

The sea churned around them. The rocks had worn away, as Hannibal said, but in their place they had left a mess of conflicting currents that yanked them toward the bluff like a rip tide.

Will almost let Hannibal go then. Maybe one of them could break free and avoid being smashed in the roll of the waves against the rock. Almost, but in the end he couldn’t do it. And Hannibal was holding on just as tightly as he was.

One second, the whole of his world was salt in his eyes and mouth, darkness and Hannibal’s vise grip on his shoulders and the approaching bluff. The next, they had been cast up onto a stone shore. Water lapped at their feet, but he could breathe. They were both whole. 

Will sat up. He had to haul Hannibal with him because Hannibal still clung to him. “Hey,” Will said and then he spent the next couple of minutes coughing up seawater. So did Hannibal.

“There is a hole at the base of the bluff,” Hannibal said, voice rough. He coughed again. “A sea cave.”

“Did you plan this?”

“I merely trusted to luck. Come.” He got to his feet, levering himself up with a hand on Will’s shoulder.

He led Will deeper. The darkness was absolute. They felt their way along the damp cave walls. The air tasted of salt.

“Watch your step here,” Hannibal said.

Will tapped around in front of him with his foot and stepped over a break in the rock floor that had filled with water. “Did we just cross the River Styx?”

“We are still alive. For the moment. Shade your eyes.”

Will did and still winced as blue-white light flooded out from an LED lantern. It illuminated a stone chamber, maybe ten feet across. Gallon jugs of water stood against one wall, along with rolls of blankets and boxes.

“Trusting to luck, huh?” Will said.

“And to you.”

“Me?”

“You have the most unerring ability to strike at vulnerable spots. You found mine. After that, I imagined worming your way into the heart of the Earth would be simple.”

Hannibal looked pale and very tired in the cool light. Will reached for him almost without thought. They held each other again, as tightly as they had all the way down. The sudden rush of Will’s blood in his ears sounded like the roar of the sea.


	28. protective hannibal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: I keep imagining this thing where Will does put a foot down and quit consulting for Jack and when Jack 'very rudely' barges in on him, Hannibal is there to protect Will?

Hannibal woke to the sound of a light tap on the front door. He looked over at Will, sprawled on his stomach and snoring softly with his face in the pillow. Hannibal left him there and pulled on pajama bottoms and Will’s T-shirt to answer the door.

Jack stood outside, breathing steam in the cold air, hat tipped forward to shadow his face. Hannibal gestured him inside. “Good morning. Would you like some coffee?”

Jack took off his gloves and then held them tight in both hands. “I hate to say no to your coffee, but I’m here on business.”

“You’re here for Will.”

Jack nodded once.

Hannibal watched him for a second and then turned toward the kitchen. “Have coffee with me, Jack.”

Hannibal walked away, and Jack perforce followed him. In the kitchen, Hannibal started coffee. Jack took off his hat and set it on the counter.

“This is better, don’t you think?” Hannibal said. He gave Jack a small smile. “More friendly.”

“I think it would be easier for everyone if we kept this professional.”

“I believe Will told you that he wasn’t interested in further consulting work.”

“There’s another crime scene. Three people are dead.”

Hannibal let the silence grow between them until the coffee was ready. He poured a cup for Jack and slid it over to him.

Jack sighed. “I just want to talk to him. I’m not going to drag him away by his hair.”

Hannibal sipped his own coffee. “With Will, forceful discussion and coercion are very nearly the same thing. He sees your point of view more clearly than his own.”

“And you’d rather he saw yours?”

“The work he does for you is psychologically damaging to him. You and he are both aware of that. And yes, for selfish reasons, I would prefer it if he didn’t continue. But it was his choice, not mine.”

“Do you know how many lives he’s saved? Just in the few months since he started working with us?”

“I’m afraid I must be blunt and say that I don’t care.”

Jack set the coffee down. “Is he upstairs?”

“Drink your coffee, Jack. Please. I value your friendship, and I’d prefer not to lose it over this.”

“You won’t. There’s no need for that.”

Jack got up and headed for the stairs. Hannibal had been expecting it. He planted himself at the foot of the stairs, still holding his coffee.

“I need you to move out of my way, Dr. Lecter.”

Hannibal gave him a pleasant smile. “I think an assault charge will put a crimp in our dinner plans for Sunday. You must give Bella my regrets.”

Jack tapped his fingers against the wall. “You’re serious about this.”

“Very serious.”

They both heard footsteps and looked up the stairs, but the only follow up was the sound of the bathroom door closing.

“He won’t thank you for protecting him,” Jack said.

“With your cooperation, he’ll never know.”

“I can talk to him at work.”

“Yes, you can. But not in my house.”

Jack looked past him for a second or two and then he nodded. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll get my hat.”

When Jack had gone, Hannibal returned to the bedroom. Will lay on his side, arms around a pillow, eyes still heavy with sleep.

“Good morning,” Hannibal said. “I brought you coffee.”

“I heard the last part of your talk with Jack. Not in my house? Very wild west. Are you two planning a showdown at the OK Corral later?”

Hannibal sighed. “If I must apologize–”

“No.” Will shuffled closer and laid his head on Hannibal’s thigh. “No, he was wrong actually. Thanks.”


	29. will, hannibal, and molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: can i pretty please submit a prompt where Will and Hannibal run into Molly in Argentina?

“Will?”

Will recognized her voice immediately, and it stopped him dead on the sidewalk. People flowed around them, a few grumbles and dirty looks aimed his way as he blocked their path.

Molly stood a few paces away, just as immobile, pale despite the heat.

Hannibal put a hand on Will’s back and bent toward him. “Do we have a problem?” he asked softly.

Will turned to stare at him. Hannibal’s mild and curious expression slowly filtered through his veil of shock. Molly certainly recognized Hannibal and looked ready to bolt, but Jack had successfully stomped on the press, pleading privacy for her son: she’d never had her picture in the papers. Hannibal had no idea who she was.

Will swallowed hard and tried to breath. “I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else,” he said to Molly.

He saw her thumb slide across her wedding ring and the glance at his own hand. He was wearing a ring too, but it wasn’t hers.

“Sorry,” she said. “You look like a man I used to know.”

When she had faded back into the crowd, Hannibal took Will’s arm. “She did know you,” he said.

Will shook his head. “She didn’t. Not really.”


	30. post-finale sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: pssst, if you're still taking prompts, could you please write something where Hannibal is bottom-y and overwhelmed during their first time together?

Hannibal spent the days after the cliff drifting in and out of reality. He talked as much as ever, but only about half of it was in English and even that didn’t make much sense. Will didn’t know what to do for him besides make sure he had water and antibiotics. He spent his nights sleepless and sick with worry, watching their wake as the boat cut through dark water.

Once or twice, he almost gave in and took Hannibal to a hospital, despite the risk, but if he wasn’t getting any better, he also didn’t seem to be getting worse. Will waited. In the end, his waiting paid off.

The third morning, with the boat moored in a small inlet, he dragged himself down to the cabin and found Hannibal sitting on the edge of the bed with a glass of water in his hand that he’d gotten for himself. Will stopped at the bottom of the stairs and clutched the railing hard.

Hannibal looked up at him. His face was drawn, and his eyes were hollow, but he was in there. “Will?”

“You’re–” Will had to stop and clear his throat. “How do you feel?”

“Not particularly well. Come here?” Hannibal said it cautiously, like he thought Will might have better things to do. Like Will hadn’t been waiting for him to open his eyes and look at him with recognition since he dragged him up onto the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

Will sat beside him on the bed. Hannibal leaned into him with a sigh. Will put an arm around him and slid a hand into his hair. Hannibal turned his head, eyes closed, and slid his lips along Will’s jaw. He let his mouth open on Will’s neck and kissed him there.

“You need to rest,” Will said.

“No,” Hannibal said. He fisted a hand in Will’s shirt.

“I can stay.”

Hannibal let go of him, one finger at a time. It was painful to watch. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to stay. If you want me to.”

Hannibal turned his head just enough to look up at him, and his expression was raw longing. “I want much more than that.”

“Let’s start with that.”

Will kicked off his shoes and stripped down to his boxers. Hannibal watched every movement. They lay down together in the small bunk, pressed side by side until Hannibal rolled closer and put his head on Will’s chest.

“What else do you want?” Will asked quietly.

“You. I want you. Inside me.”

Will closed his eyes. “Fucking you? Or cutting you open?”

Hannibal shuddered against him. “Either. Both. I have imagined both.”

“You’re in no shape for either one right now.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

Will tried not to hold him too tightly. “I thought you were going to die on me. I kept wondering what I’d do without you.”

“What did you come up with?”

“Nothing. I couldn’t imagine it.”

“Please, Will. If you have any inclination at all. I have been waiting.”

“Not now. I’ll hurt you.”

“Now. I need it.”

“The pain or the connection?”

Hannibal gave him a small smile. “Is there any difference?” 

Will gave in. He’d known he would from the first time Hannibal said please. He got Hannibal his painkillers first and another dose of antibiotics. He came back from the galley with Vaseline to find Hannibal naked on the bed with his legs spread.

“Are you really sure about this?” Will said. He was a long way from sure himself. The gunshot wound was healing, but not quickly. He had seen pain on Hannibal’s face too many times in the past week.

Hannibal just reached for him, wordless and wide-eyed. He would’ve pulled Will right down on top of him if Will had let him. Instead, Will got his boxers off and then let himself down onto his side. Their bodies touched, both of them warm and bare. Will cock stirred almost immediately, and Hannibal reached for it, stroking, while Will dug into the Vaseline with shaky fingers.

He eased Hannibal’s knee up and pressed into him. He’d imagined the tight grip of muscle, but somehow not the heat, as if Hannibal’s body would be as cool and calm inside as out. Not that his outside was cool or calm now.

Hannibal watched him constantly, eyes flicking over Will’s face and chest and down his arm to where he had one finger buried in Hannibal’s body. There was something wild and desperate in that look.

“Is it okay?” Will asked. “I haven’t done this before.”

“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Hannibal said, just a touch breathless.

Will gave him a crooked smile. “I watched a lot of porn the last couple years, believe it or not. Molly caught me once.”

“Don’t,” Hannibal said, voice raw and aching. “Don’t talk about her.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Will said. He bent and kissed him, and it felt natural, as if they’d done it a hundred times. He stayed there, pressed close, lips against Hannibal’s and parting only enough to breathe as he stretched him open.

“On your side, okay?” Will murmured. He pressed on Hannibal’s shoulder until he lay on his good side. Will slid in close behind him. He was hard and had been hard almost from the start. Hannibal wasn’t. “Are you sure you want to do this? We can wait. I’m not going anywhere.”

Hannibal reached back for his hand. “Please,” he said.

Will pressed into him slowly, watching and feeling for any sign of pain. A few muscles twitched along Hannibal’s spine, but that was all. When he was all the way in, Hannibal heaved a breath between a sigh and a sob.

“Stay there,” he said.

Will stayed. He couldn’t quite keep still, but he kept the movement of his hips to fractions of an inch. He stroked Hannibal’s skin, all along his wounded side and down over his stomach and thigh. He kissed the back of his neck. When he reached for Hannibal’s cock, a hand caught his wrist.

“Don’t bother. I’m too tired and in too much pain. This is all I want.”

Will wrapped an arm around his chest and rocked into him, slow and careful. He moved them with the waves that lapped against the boat. Time slowed. He closed his eyes and nuzzled against Hannibal’s shoulder and felt he could do this forever.

A tremor in Hannibal’s body brought him back, and he became conscious of the strained quality of Hannibal’s breath. He lifted his head to look over Hannibal’s shoulder and saw a wet trail from one closed eye to the corner of his open mouth.

“Are you okay?” Will said softly.

“Don’t stop,” Hannibal said, voice thick. “Please don’t stop.”

“I won’t. I promise.” Will held him closer. “I promise.”


	31. the fall was metaphorical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: If you accept requests and have the time, I'd really appreciate a little story that the fall was metaphorical, Hannibal and Will go back to the house and clean up and talk.

They’re standing on the edge in every possible way. Will leans into Hannibal just that little more, and he can feel them both fall. The air whistles in his ears and stings against his face. He closes his eyes against an impact that doesn’t come. 

Hannibal cups his uninjured cheek and says his name so softly. “Will? Are you here with me?”

Will opens his eyes to a moment of vertigo. They are not shattered at the bottom of the cliff, not lost in the dark Atlantic. Hannibal’s heel is set at the very border between rock and air, but Will didn’t push them over. He finds that he doesn’t need to.

Instead, he tightens his hold on Hannibal and pulls him toward the house.

When they pass the dragon, Will looks down at him. His wings are spread wide around him. When Will blinks, he can see them move.

“He chose suicide in the end after all,” Hannibal said.

“He fought.”

“One can be glad to go down fighting.”

Inside the house, Will helped Hannibal into the bathroom and cut his sweater away from the wound.

“How bad is it?”

“I don’t believe it passed through anything vital. I’ll need your help,” Hannibal said.

Hannibal directs him, and Will does as much as he can. In the end, Hannibal is weak enough from blood loss that Will has to stitch him up. Hannibal looks on with disapproval of both Will’s clumsy stitches and his own shaking hands. He flexes them open and closed, open and closed, and holds one in front of his face.

“Don’t pass out yet,” Will says.

“I won’t. I was only thinking. When they put you in the straightjacket, what did you do with your hands? I found that I was overly conscious of them at all times. It was distracting.”

Will ties off the last stitch and cuts it. His own hands are starting to shake as well. Not just his hands. He tries not to think about the growing pallor in Hannibal’s face, about losing him now. Not now. “I never thought about it.”

“What did you think of? Your stream?”

“I thought about killing you.”

Hannibal smiles up at him, a glazed and oddly sweet expression. “Did you really?”

“Often,” Will says.

Hannibal reaches for his hand. They both made an attempt to clean up before Will started on Hannibal’s stomach, but their gloved hands are sticky with blood again. Only Hannibal’s, this time. Will twists in his seat to look behind him, and Hannibal’s grip tightens.

“He is dead,” Hannibal says.

“Monsters come back from the dead.”

Hannibal tugs Will closer and kisses the back of his bloody hand. “Yes, we do.”


	32. best of all possible worlds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: What do you think happened in Will's best of all possible worlds (omg can you believe THAT was the best for Will??) after they kill Jack? I, shamefully, must admit that I thought the sparks that followed symbolized their union. *puts hands under chin and waits for your answer, in whatever form it may come*

Will sat at the stern of the boat with his line over the side. He wasn’t going to catch anything. The water was pale blue crystal. He could see all the way to the sandy bottom: nothing but flowing fronds of seaweed and a few stingrays. He didn’t mind. The sun poured over him and loosened his joints. He already had a tan that made the sharp line of his scar stand out, bone-white, against his stomach.

It had done the opposite for Hannibal. The scars on his wrists had faded as if bleached, and he looked almost untouched now. Will glanced at him where he sat in the shade of the sail, knees pulled up, a book propped open on them, pen between his teeth.

“Are you actually working?” Will said.

“Composing.”

“There isn’t a harpsichord for a couple hundred miles in any direction.”

Hannibal pushed his hair back from his face and looked up at him. “We’ll have to land eventually,” he said.

They would. Eventually.


	33. will's scar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: What do you think Hannibal's reaction was when he undressed Will and saw the tummy smile for the first time?

After Hannibal peels Will’s shirt back and puts a needle in his shoulder, the world fades to dark shapes and shadowed memories. He talks to Abigail, and she answers with Hannibal’s voice.

“Can you walk away?”

He can’t, but he is walking. Hannibal’s arm around his waist guides him down a hallway mosaiced with shifting light. They move through a door, and the room steadies around him. Will returns to the sound of water.

“You’ve had a hard journey,” Hannibal tells him.

“I’ve always found forgiveness difficult,” Will says.

Hannibal undresses him. Will can’t help or hinder. His arms are heavy as stone at his sides. He’s only upright because falling would require movement. He watches the water fill the tub. It licks up the sides like something curious and alive.

Hannibal kneels in front of him to remove the rest of his clothes. He spreads a hand over the scar on Will’s stomach.

“I was going to give it back to you,” Will tells him. He stumbles over the words, tongue thick in his mouth. “A smile for a smile.”

Hannibal holds him for a moment, cheek and then lips against his skin, but Will can’t move to return his embrace.


	34. tristan, galahad, and chopper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tristan acquires a hawk.

Galahad woke to a hand slapping first his shoulder and then his cheek.

"Wake up," Tristan said. "Come with me."

Galahad stumbled after him into the cold dark under a black sky. His breath steamed. His mouth tasted foul, and the fog from last night’s drink clung to his mind. They were nearly to the stables before he thought to question why Tristan had hauled him out of bed.

Tristan took him by the shoulders and set him with his back against the wall. “I have a hawk,” he said. “I took her as I rode back from Caerleon to meet you. Do you know anything of falconry?”

Galahad shook his head, struck dumb as he was too often in Tristan’s presence.

“I must stay with her. She must learn to trust me, to eat from my hand. Two days, perhaps three. You will make sure no one comes in.”

“For three days?”

“I have food and water. This part of the stable is unused.”

A screech sounded from inside the stable. Galahad jumped and then groaned, pain singing through his head. “What if Arthur wants to see you? What if we have to leave?”

“Arthur will have to wait. If the Devil himself comes knocking, I expect you to turn him away. Understood?”

Galahad nodded, and Tristan clasped his forearm. There was real excitement in his eyes, a sort of life and joy and even warmth that Galahad had never seen there before, and he had looked.

He returned Tristan’s grip. “I promise,” he said.

Tristan squeezed his arm hard and disappeared inside, leaving Galahad to realize that he was out in the cold, without food or water or blanket, and that he’d better get all three before anyone else woke up. He was gone from his post only moments, relieved to see the door still firmly shut. He wrapped himself in his cloak and two blankets and settled down to wait.

Halfway to morning, a scream from inside woke him. He heard a frantic beating of wings, the crack of something hard against wood, and then Tristan’s voice, soft and coaxing. He addressed the hawk far more gently than Galahad had ever heard him speak to another human being.

“Hush now, hush. You must be so tired, Come and sit here, sit on my hand. I won’t let you fall.”

Galahad closed his eyes and listened to Tristan murmur endearments and nonsense and affection to this wild thing he meant to tame. He didn't think the hawk could possibly hold out for three days when Tristan sounded like that.


	35. unexpected dinner party

The first thing Will thought when he pushed through Hannibal’s front door was that he should’ve counted the cars. None of them had parked in Hannibal’s drive, but his mind presented him with an image of the street, lined on both sides. Light and music came from the main room. Will stayed on the doorstep, one foot over the threshold.

He would’ve turned and walked out again, but it was the harpsichord, and he was pretty sure it was Hannibal playing. He slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He’d just stay for the end of the song.

After a minute, he moved down the hall and through the kitchen. Hannibal had hired help in the kitchen, a man and a woman, both in white uniforms. One washed wine glasses while the other cleaned the bowl of a food processor. They looked at him but said nothing, even when he stood at the kitchen door and peered out into the main room.

Hannibal sat at the harpsichord, back straight and chin lifted as if scenting the music. His eyes were half closed. When the piece faded into silence and then applause, he nodded in thanks but didn’t quite meet anyone’s eyes.

It was only for a second and then he had his host’s smile in place again, but that second made Will step out into the room. He took a glass of champagne from a small table made out of antlers and ignored the stares he got as he crossed to the harpsichord.


	36. will drinking after visiting hannibal in the bshci

Will wanted a drink before he even left the building. If he was honest with himself, he’d wanted one before he walked in. Now, with Hannibal’s fingerprints sticky on the inside of his skull, desire had become craving.

He bought a bottle of whiskey on the way back to the hotel. If he didn’t, he knew he’d end up hitting the minibar. This was practical. Less expensive.  
He’d have to go back and talk to Hannibal again. He’d need the bottle.

It was a long time before he took the first drink. He sat on the edge of the bed with the glass in his hand. The hum of the compact fluorescent bulbs was the only sound in the room. The window was so well sealed that not even the traffic noise crept in around the edges. Will stood and walked over to look out. He pressed a palm to the cold glass.

He hadn’t touched the barrier that separated Hannibal from the world, but he imagined it would be cold. His own cell at the BSHCI had always been cold, and he had felt the same ineradicable dank quality in Hannibal’s, despite its amenities. Damp chill and sorrow permeated the stone walls.   
Will took a sip of his whiskey. It burned going down. He’d bought the cheap stuff as punishment or deterrent; he wasn’t sure which. If deterrent, it wouldn’t work. If punishment, it wasn’t enough.

He closed his eyes. Rooms unfolded in his mind like the sliding panels of a puzzle box. It took no effort to find Hannibal. He was in all of them.  
“Are you going to offer me a drink?” Hannibal said.

“I don’t think you’d thank me for it.”

“Then may I offer you one?” Hannibal had a bottle in his hand. It was the same one Will had brought to his long ago dinner party. Two glasses sat on Hannibal’s kitchen counter.

Overhead, Will could see the skylight in Hannibal’s cell. He sat down on his bed in the hotel room and nodded. After a moment, Hannibal came to sit beside him. The wine was nothing extraordinary; Will hadn’t been aiming to impress, only to avoid embarrassment, but it was rich and dark on the tongue, full of heavy fruit and a sharp tang that made Will think of blood. They drank until Will’s skin flushed with heat and Hannibal’s mouth was stained pink.

“I’m coming back to see you tomorrow,” Will said.

“I know. I’m waiting for you.”

“Yeah. You’ve been waiting.”

“Don’t make me out to be a martyr, Will. You’ve been waiting just as long.”

Will drained his glass. It was cheap whiskey instead of wine, but the sick heat in his stomach wasn’t from the alcohol. It was the knowledge that he couldn’t wait to go back.


	37. loveless au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> if you are confused by this, google "loveless manga" and be prepared for a world of angst, pain, and catboys.

Will’s last class of the day let out at three. The students exited like they expected pursuit. He honestly hadn’t thought the test was that hard. It shouldn’t have been that hard if they’d done the reading. He packed up slowly to avoid any uncomfortable encounters in the hall.

While he was sliding his laptop into his bag, he became aware that he was being watched. He looked up. The boy standing in front of his desk was too young to be one of his students, sixteen or seventeen at most. He still had his ears, small and neat, the same light color as his hair. His tail lashed once and then settled down to twitch against his ankle.

“Are you Will Graham?” the boy said.

Will frowned. “Yeah. Who are you?”

“My name is Hannibal Lecter.”

“What are doing here? How did you get in?”

“I walked,” Hannibal said.

“From where?”

“From the road. The security isn’t very good if you don’t need a car.”

Will leaned against the edge of his desk. “No, I guess it’s not. Okay, that covers how you got in. What about why?”

“I’m here to see you.”

Will racked his mind, but if this boy had been involved in any case he’d worked, he didn’t remember it. “Why me?”

“I belong to you now,” Hannibal said calmly.

Will suddenly felt fortunate that Alana was teaching right down the hall. “Let’s take a walk,” he said.

Hannibal followed after him, just a step behind. “I know you don’t believe me,” he said. “You think I’m deranged. But it’s true. You’ll see. We belong to each other.”

Will thought he had enough strays already, but he didn’t say it out loud. If Hannibal thought he needed someone to belong to, then outright rejection would do more harm than good. He caught Alana just stepping out of her classroom, tried to think how to explain the situation as succinctly as possible, and stopped before he opened his mouth.

She was looking at Hannibal with bloodless shock that passed in a flash over her face, quickly hidden. “Hannibal,” she said. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Dr. Bloom.” Hannibal gave her a nod that almost a bow. “If you’ll excuse me? I imagine you’d both prefer I was out of earshot for this conversation.”  
He retreated down the hall, pulled a phone from his pocket, and put on the earphones attached to it.

“You know him,” Will said to Alana.

“So do you. At least you’ve heard about the case. Two years ago, Fall River, his sister’s body was found in his chair at school. She was burned to death.”

Will glanced down the hall. “That was him?”

“They called me in to talk him. Amnesia. He doesn’t remember finding her. He doesn’t remember her at all, or his parents, or any part of his life before that day. Are they looking into the case again? Is Jack involved?”

Will shook his head. “I have no idea. He showed up in my classroom five minutes ago. He said he came to find me.”

“Why you?”

“He said he belongs to me.”

Will looked down the hall as he said it. Hannibal still had his earphones on, music so loud that Will could hear the faint sound of classical piano even from this distance, but he was looking right at Will. Their eyes met and held. For once, Will felt no urge to look away.

*

Hannibal Lecter was an orphan and an independently wealthy emancipated minor. It turned out that this made it nearly impossible for Will to get rid of him without filing a restraining order. 

"Don't you have to be in school?" Will asked, the third time he found Hannibal lingering outside his classroom. 

"I tested out of high school at fifteen. I've been accepted at Princeton, but I don't start until fall." Hannibal looked down, tail winding around his ankle, ears drooping. "But that was before. I won't be able to go now, of course."

Will frowned. "Why not?" 

"I told you." 

"You belong to me," Will said. 

"Yes." 

They walked down the hall and out into a gray afternoon. Will led Hannibal to his car. "Do you want to get something to eat?" he said. 

Hannibal looked up with the first sign up of real interest he'd shown since Will had met him. "Can I cook for you?" 

Will didn't have it in him to say no. They started the long drive back to Wolf Trap. Will had been trying to connect what he knew from Hannibal's file to what had seen and heard from Hannibal himself. So far, none of the pieces seemed to fit. Hannibal had been a good student, very bright -- his teachers used the word 'disconcerting' to describe his intelligence -- from an ordinary and apparently stable family, no known problems until his younger sister was murdered, his mother disappeared, and his father lost his mind. 

Hannibal had spent six months in a residential mental hospital being treated unsuccessfully for his amnesia and with more apparent success for his trauma. And then he'd dropped off the face of the Earth and reemerged four months later in Will's classroom. Will's mind cycled endlessly around what might have happened to him in those lost months: kidnapping, abuse, brainwashing, some kind of cult. Nothing fit the confident attitude Hannibal projected. Nothing made sense. 

Will tapped his thumb against the steering wheel. "If you belong to me and I say you can go to Princeton, doesn't that mean you can go?" 

Hannibal smiled a little. "You're kind. I didn't think you would be. But no. It doesn't work like that."

"How does it work?" Will said. 

And then he had to swerve violently to the right to avoid two teenagers standing in the middle of the road. He bounced the edge of the bumper off a small tree and dumped the car in a ditch. The airbag punched him in the face. He sat, stunned, while it deflated and he inhaled its plastic and chemical smell. When he blinked and cleared his head, he realized that Hannibal was already out of the car. 

He stood with the two teenagers at the edge of the woods. One of them had a hand stretched out toward him in the shape of a claw. Will rubbed at his eyes because he would've sworn the kid's fingertips were glowing.

Hannibal raised both his hands. Something came out of them. Something like thorn covered vines. Or barbed wire. Or antlers. For a second, Will could only stare, and then there was a burst of light, the two teenagers were gone, and Hannibal was swaying on his feet. Even at this distance, Will could see blood staining his shirt. 

He tumbled out of the car and ran. Hannibal took a staggering step as Will reached him and collapsed into his arms, one hand clutching the front of his shirt. He was very pale, but he smiled in triumph as Will lifted him off his feet. "You see?" he said. "You'll need me."


	38. will and hannibal in the hospital post s3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: Can't find a post about your prompt policy but here's one. Will and Hannibal are found on the beach, unconscious, and taken to hospital. Some big wig FBI person, ignoring Jack, gets it in their head that it's a good idea to tell each that the other is dead upon their waking. Maybe hoping it will break their draw to each other or make Hannibal easier to handle. It turns out to be a really really bad idea.

Will woke up with both hands cuffed to the railings of his hospital bed. He had an IV drip in one hand, bandages that covered half his face and more swaddling his shoulder under the hospital gown. He couldn't decide which part of him hurt the most. There were too many aches to choose from. 

"You're awake," someone said. 

Will turned his head enough to see a stranger in a blue suit, cropped haircut, red tie, gold tie clip. "I don't know you," Will said. 

"My name's Engstrom." He displayed his ID. He was FBI. "I'm here to talk to you about Hannibal Lecter, Will."

"I don't know that I want to talk about Hannibal." 

"We'd really like you to. We need some information. And you're our only source now." 

Will could feel the lie like a building thunderhead behind Engstrom's words. "Why is that?" he asked. 

Engstrom watched him with far too much attention as he answered. "Because Hannibal Lecter is dead, Will. We recovered his body from the ocean this morning." 

It hurt even knowing it wasn't true, and Will didn't have to fake his flinch. He turned away and coughed, kept coughing until something stuck in his throat for real. "Water," he croaked. 

Engstrom poured him a cup and tried to hold it for him. 

"Can you just--" A pause to choke on air and imagined grief. "--uncuff one goddamn hand? I doubt I could even walk right now." 

Engstrom got the key out. That was good. Will had worried he might not have it on him. He was still worried, though not about Engstrom. In the distance, he could hear raised voices. Lots of reasons for that in a hospital. It didn't necessarily mean what he thought it meant. Even so, he'd better hurry. 

Engstrom uncuffed him. Will sat up and drank until the the cup was empty. He caught Engstrom by the hair and yanked his head down to catch his neck between his legs. A punch to his kidney made him grunt and struggle more weakly. Will choked him until he went limp, plucked the key from his hand, and let him slide to the floor. He got the other cuff off and pulled out his IV. 

In the hall, someone screamed. Will pulled off Engstrom's coat and put it on as well as he could with one working shoulder. He shuffled over to the door, every muscle protesting the movement. There was blood on the wall outside. Hannibal, also in a hospital gown, stood over the bodies of two uniformed security guards. He had blood on his hands and on his mouth. 

"Hey," Will said. 

Hannibal raised his head slowly, chest heaving. It took a few seconds for recognition to bring back some kind of sanity to his eyes. "They said--"

"Yeah, they told me the same about you."

"You didn't believe it." 

"I knew you wouldn't leave me." He nodded toward the stairs. "Come on. Let's get out of here." 

*

The FBI man had introduced himself as Clark. Hannibal watched his hand twitch. Clark had something to say, something that was making him nervous.

Hannibal was cuffed to the hospital bed. His wounds must have been severe enough that they considered further restraint unnecessary. That would make things easier. Clark held a pen in his left hand. Disassembled, it would be quite useful.

"Will Graham is dead," Clark said. "We recovered his body from the ocean this morning."

He kept speaking after that. He wanted something. He thought he could bargain somehow over Will's corpse. For a few seconds, Hannibal watched his lips move. After that, he saw Will's face instead. Cold and pale, seaweed trailing across his cheek like a lover's caress. When Clark leaned forward to make a point, Hannibal bit his throat out. It seemed like the thing to do. 

The pen fell into Hannibal's waiting palm. Soon after that, the cuffs fell to the floor. 

Hannibal stood for a moment, mind blank. He thought briefly of escape, but this was not how his escape had been meant to go. Every potential future had included Will. Without him, Hannibal felt that his future lay on an autopsy table, guts removed to check their weight and contents.

He could hear footsteps coming closer, running. That was convenient. He could think of nothing he wanted more than to rend the world limb from limb, and a small portion of the world was coming to present itself for slaughter. He checked Clark's body for weapons. Disappointingly, he found none, but he still had the pen.

He stepped into the hall just as two security guards reached him. He jammed the pen into one man's eye and slammed his palm against the other's throat. He grabbed the first man by the hair and slammed his head into the concrete wall until his skull shattered. The second man stared, clutching his throat, gurgling. Hannibal stood and regarded him for a moment. He pulled the pen from the first man's eye and plunged it into the second man's temple. When he pulled it out, a satisfactory amount of blood followed and the man crumpled to the ground.

"Hey."

Hannibal felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. The air seemed thin around him. He looked up. Will leaned in the doorway of a room just down the hall wearing a hospital gown and someone's coat. For a second or two, Hannibal stood with blood creeping toward his bare feet and an echoing silence in his head.

"They said--"

"Yeah, they told me the same about you," Will said. 

"You didn't believe it." 

"I knew you wouldn't leave me." He nodded toward the stairs. "Come on. Let's get out of here." 

Hannibal thought of kissing him, but it seemed rude with his mouth so full of someone else's blood. They hadn't even killed the man together. He could wait. 

*

Hannibal stopped Will two flights down, directed him out of the stairwell, and pulled him immediately into a supply closet. They changed into scrubs without needing to speak or look at each other, though Hannibal looked at Will anyway. 

"Wipe your mouth," Will said. He handed Hannibal a towel. "No, more than that. Let me." 

Hannibal bent slightly to let Will clean blood off his face without straining his injured shoulder. "Am I presentable?"

"As much as you're likely to be. What about me?" 

"It hardly matters. We are both far too recognizable, and they will be waiting for us." Hannibal watched Will take that in: the certain lockdown of the hospital, the surrounding area, perhaps even the roads in and out of the city. The FBI had lost Hannibal once already; they would not want to lose him again. He watched Will's mind work through the meager possibilities of escape.

Shouting below them, pounding footsteps, more sirens. 

"I guess we're going up," Will said. 

They slipped back into the stairwell, running as well as they could. They emerged onto the roof, yards from the edge. Hannibal looked down into the street below, at the chaos of flashing lights and milling bodies. "Are you planning another fall for us?" he asked. 

Will gave him an unimpressed look. "I thought we'd take the fire escape, but if you'd rather…" 

Hannibal did kiss him then. He couldn't help it.


	39. hannibal's first words are "please, help"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: Hi!! Can I submit a prompt? As mads said at the con, Hannibal's first words upon resurfacing are something like, "please help"?? Thank you!

Hannibal’s mind jolted out of darkness as the cold surf drove in against his mouth and against the gaping wound in his side. He still had Will’s wrist clenched tight in his left hand, and Will was gripping his soaked sweater. 

He could smell someone nearby: a drift of tobacco smoke and fish guts over the overpowering salt and seaweed smell of the ocean. A fisherman. He heard the crunch of footsteps on the rocky beach. After a second, he got his bleary eyes open wide enough to see a dark figure maybe ten feet away. His boat bobbed out on the waves. 

Hannibal coughed and then vomited seawater. The figure jumped and took a hurried step back. “Holy shit! I never saw you there. Hey, you okay?”

“Please, help,” Hannibal said. 

The fisherman came closer as Hannibal managed to sit up. “I apologize,” Hannibal said. 

“It’s no trouble. Let’s get you up and--” 

Hannibal broke his neck. The man’s body fell onto the rocks beside him. Hannibal looked to the dinghy pulled up onto the shore. He’d have to get the body into it, get Will into, and row all three of them out to the boat moored offshore. His body felt like it must be made of the same rocks he sat on: heavy, immovable, and achingly cold. 

It took him whole minutes to get to his feet, but he did stand, swaying with the force of the waves around his ankles. It would be easier to leave the fisherman, but far safer to dump him out at sea. 

He looked down at Will, who had meant for them to die but still clutched Hannibal close all the way down. Hannibal picked him up with a great heave. He’d done what was necessary at Muskrat Farm and he would do the same now. He tried not to think of Will’s words to him last time or imagine what they might be upon his next waking. He took one step after another. Now, as then, there was nothing else to do. 

*

The fisherman had been rolled in a tarp and strapped down on deck. Hannibal had cranked up the little heater in the boat's cabin, sterilized needle and thread, and done what he could for his own wound. An examination with mirror and penlight suggested it hadn't hit anything vital, but he was not working under ideal conditions and could not be sure. Time would tell. 

Will lay unmoving on the small bunk that folded down from the wall. Hannibal had dried and redressed him in a rough wool sweater and oversized jeans, tended his wounds, and covered him with every blanket he could find. Now he sat on the edge of the bunk and watched Will breathe. 

It was a moment of indulgence. He needed to get them away from shore if he possibly could, though it might be better to wait until dawn revealed any rocks in their path. Will's chest rose and fell in a reassuring rhythm. Hannibal's eyes sank half closed. Perhaps more than half. 

The next thing he knew was Will's hand on his wrist, gripping just as tightly as it had in the heaving ocean. Will blinked up at him and licked his dry lips. "We made it?" 

Hannibal nodded. 

Will tugged at him until Hannibal bent low enough for Will to get an arm around his neck. He pulled Hannibal against his chest, breath still warm and steady. Hannibal closed his eyes and rested there, bent in half with the wound in his side a shrill siren of pain from the position. He never wanted to move again. 

"M'glad," Will said. 

"Are you? I thought you might not be." 

Will pulled back until they could look at each other. He put a hand on Hannibal's cheek, thumb skimming under his eye. His expression was very serious. "There was something I wanted to do before we went over the edge. I should have." 

"Unfinished business?" Hannibal could hear the uncertainty in his own voice. He let it be. Will knew what he did to him. 

Will's gaze dropped to Hannibal's mouth. "I wanted to kiss you after we killed him. I wasn't expecting to want that. To want you like that." 

"And do you still?" 

Will nodded. His throat clicked as he swallowed. "A lot. Is it okay?" 

"Please," Hannibal said. 

Will closed his eyes as he leaned in. He pressed his lips to Hannibal's so softly with a bare, hot brush of his tongue. The sea had washed away most of the blood from both of them, but Hannibal could still taste it in his mouth. They stayed as they were, close together, barely moving, until the taste faded away.


	40. will singing opera

The morning after the opera, Hannibal woke late. It had been a long drive into the city and back. The sun reflected off the lake outside their cabin and sent ripples of light across the ceiling. He watched them for a while and nearly slid into his dreams again. Will’s voice called him back.

He was singing. It filtered in through the open window along with a spring breeze that fluttered the curtains. Hannibal rolled out of bed and crossed the room. Will sat on the dock behind the house. His feet hung over the edge into the water. He was gutting fish as he sang, hands slippery with blood. 

The morning light gilded his skin and hair. Hannibal could see his throat work as he sang, abandoned to it, head tipped back. He’d fallen asleep during the first half of Turandot last night and hadn’t looked overly enthused about the part he’d been awake for, and now this. Always full of surprises.

Will’s voice was far from perfect, fraying at the lows and highs and none too smooth in the middle, but it was his own. Hearing him sing of stars that trembled with love and hope held Hannibal transfixed for the length of the aria.

Will broke off in a laugh as a turtle splashed heavily into the pond a few feet away. “I didn’t think I was that bad.”

“You’re not,” Hannibal said.

Will twisted around. “Hey. I thought you were asleep.” He sounded a touch self conscious and didn’t meet Hannibal’s eyes as readily as he did most of the time these days.

“I woke just in time. Where did you learn it?”

“You do play that one kind of a lot when we’re driving. I like it.”

“I didn’t know you liked any of them.”

Will smiled, gathering up his gutted fish. “I didn’t want to give you an excuse to monopolize the car stereo. You want to come cook these trout?”

“I’ll be there in a moment.”

Hannibal watched Will walk into the house, humming under his breath. He closed his eyes for a moment. It was all still there when he opened them again. He pulled on his robe and headed into the kitchen.


	41. will leaves with hannibal in mizumono

“We could disappear now. Tonight. Feed your dogs, leave a note for Alana, and never see her or Jack again. Almost polite.”

Will can feel the words of refusal on the tip on his tongue. They taste bitter. He takes a sip of wine and another bite of lamb. He takes a little time. He thinks the words he hasn’t allowed himself to think even once since he let himself sink neck deep in this, since Hannibal bathed his bloody knuckles and called him back from the edge of something he still can’t name. He thinks: what if.

Candlelight softens Hannibal’s expression to something approaching melancholy. The same feeling fills up Will’s stomach, leaving no more room for dinner. He thinks of blood, no matter whose. He’d rather have wine.

“I haven’t asked you where we’ll go,” he says.

Hannibal’s eyes brighten. “Will you let it be a surprise? I have a number of surprises for you.”

“I haven’t packed,” Will says, which isn’t quite true. He’s thrown a haphazard selection of clothes in a duffle bag: half-packed for his half-decided mind.

Hannibal leans toward him. He puts a hand on Will’s arm. “Is there anything you truly need to take?”

Will shakes his head. He can’t take the dogs. Nothing else is that important. He puts his fork down. His heart is beating too hard. For once, it’s not fear. “Right now?” he says. “Can we go now?”

“Soon,” Hannibal says. He seems almost to glow with the intensity of his expression. His fingers press hard into Will’s skin. “There’s something I need to show you first.”


	42. hannibal and wig from ladders

Sometimes Will feels like he should be taking field notes on Hannibal. Specifically on his adjustment to a quiet life in France. More specifically on his adjustment to life with a puppy who adores him. 

Will has started training Wig, and she responds well enough, but it’s Hannibal who cooks for her (and Winston) and walks her most of the time through the tall grass that binds up the wheels on Will’s antique wheelchair. It’s Hannibal who rescued her and bathed her and treats her with a sort of offhand, confused kindness. 

Most of the time. Sometimes, now for example, it’s a little less than offhand if no less confused. 

Will’s got a fire going in the one mostly furnished room of their house, and they’re both sitting on the couch. Will leans into Hannibal’s side. Winston sits on the floor with his head on Will’s knee. 

And Wig has crawled into Hannibal’s lap, turned around seven times, and finally curled up nose to tail. Hannibal has a hand laid over her like a blanket. Now and then he looks down at her. She licks his thumb in her sleep.


	43. fbi trainee will

“He was your patient,” Will says. 

“What makes you say that?” 

“You wanted him to be found. You feel some degree of responsibility for him. He’s not just a clue.” 

“That’s a great deal to assume based on a head in a jar, Will.”

“I’m not assuming it based on a head in a jar. I’m inferring it from your actions. I’ve read interviews with nearly everyone who was close to you. Not one of them said they knew you intimately. You didn’t have friends, so who would you feel responsible for? Patients. That’s a safe, professional relationship.” 

“Franklyn wanted very much to be my friend.”

“I bet that bugged the hell out of you.”

“I gave him a referral shortly before his death.” 

“And then you got rid of him permanently. Why?” 

“Assuming that I did, you don’t believe my posited irritation with him was enough?” 

Will shakes his head. “If you really thought Franklyn deserved to die, you wouldn’t have sent me after him. You might not care that he’s dead, but you wanted him…unearthed. Was he afraid of the dark?” 

“Franklyn was afraid of many things. Are you afraid of the dark, Will?” 

Will stands and leaves the wet towel in front of Hannibal’s cell. “Not any more than you are. Thank you for your help, Dr. Lecter.”


	44. cult leader hannibal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> http://emungere.tumblr.com/post/133291706937/sherlocks-freebitch

At least three sets of hands shoved Will forward. He fell on his knees in the dirt. The rope around his wrists dug into his skin. He could get it no looser, no matter how he twisted. Voices rose up around him in the hot night, muffled but excited. He smelled rotting leaves and fresh earth. Someone howled. 

"That's enough," a new voice said. 

Will knew him: Hannibal Lecter, the chief psychiatrist at the mental hospital he'd been sent to investigate after its patients developed a habit of turning up dead in the woods. The woods where, he guessed, he now knelt. 

A hand touched his face. He flinched from it, but Dr. Lecter only worked his blindfold up and off. He squatted in front of Will, balanced on his heels. "You checked yourself into my care under false pretenses," Dr. Lecter said. 

Will said nothing.

Dr. Lecter held up Will's badge, which he could only have gotten from Will's apartment back in New Orleans. "Detective Will Graham, New Orleans Homicide. Only twenty two. You must be quite the prodigy. It will be a shame to cut your career short." 

Will looked at Lecter's calm face and then at the circle of silent people. Some held torches. Some crouched in the shadows and some pressed as near as they could get to Lecter before he gave them a look like a whip and sent them scuttling back. 

"A hunting party," Will said. 

Lecter nodded once. "In my forest, we eat or we are eaten."

"Are you saying I have a chance?" 

"There is always a chance if we are willing to take the opportunities presented to us. Don't you find that to be true?"

"I think I'd find more opportunities with my hands untied," Will said. 

Lecter smiled. It showed his teeth. He took a knife from his pocket and cut the ropes from Will's wrists. "Good hunting," he said. 

That was the cue for every figure in the circle to come at Will with open mouths and clawed hands. He dove through a gap, rolled, and came up running. 

*

Near dawn, Will found the circle of bare earth again. Lecter was still there. 

Will dumped his burden onto the ground at his feet. It was the body of a man dressed in armor made from bones and claws.

"I didn't think I would see you again," Lecter said. 

Will stood, panting. He looked from his bloody knuckles to the body of the man he'd killed. "I couldn't find my way out of the woods," he said. After that night, he wasn't sure he ever would.


	45. sugarbaby hannibal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> http://emungere.tumblr.com/post/117629970642/whispers-if-youre-taking-requests-id-love-a

Will checked his watch again. Hannibal was always punctual about their appointments, to the extent that Will sometimes suspected him of standing just on the other side of the door watching the seconds tick down to seven thirty. It was now nearly eight, and Will had heard nothing from inside, despite guiltily pressing his ear to the door. He was beginning to entertain visions of Hannibal prostrate on the floor following a heart attack. 

He knocked softly. No answer. He pushed the door open. 

Hannibal was sitting on the edge of his desk. An older man with silver hair and a sharp black suit stood between his spread legs. His hands gripped Hannibal's thighs, and he leaned in to speak in his ear. The entire scene was so incongruous that for a split second Will thought Hannibal was being attacked. It was the only way he could process what he was seeing.

Hannibal looked up at him and smiled "Will. I'm so sorry. You didn't get my message?" 

Will shook his head dumbly. There had been nothing on his cell, and he didn't check his home voicemail until evening. Hannibal knew that.

"I'm afraid I had to cancel our appointment. But perhaps this is fortuitous. I did want you two to meet. Will, this is Seymour Grey, my husband. Seymour, this is Will Graham." 

Grey stepped forward with his hand outstretched, though he kept his other hand firmly on Hannibal's thigh. "So pleased to meet you," he said, without sounding pleased at all.

"Likewise." Will shook and did not squeeze down the way he wanted to. Grey had manicured hands, diamond cufflinks, and a cordial smile that Will disliked immediately. He shook himself. _Hannibal_ had all those things - well, possibly not the diamond cufflinks; most of his were more subtle - and none of them were a good basis for disliking someone. Hannibal's husband. Jesus. "I had no idea you were married," he said. 

Grey raised his eyebrows, still wearing that cordial smile. "And I had no idea you existed, but then Hannibal doesn't generally talk a great deal about his patients, and certainly not by name."

"Will is my friend," Hannibal said simply. "We were just going to dinner, Will. Would you care to join us?" 

The cordial smile slipped a little at that, but Grey only said, "Oh, yes. Please do." 

Even after a lifetime's experience with awkward situations, Will could not imagine anything more awkward than dinner out at some fancy restaurant with his shrink and his shrink's rich spouse. "Thanks, but no," he said. "I'm going to head home. I'll see you next week?" 

"I'm not certain when Seymour will be leaving yet, but I'll call you," Hannibal promised. 

They said goodbye, and Will made his way down to the sidewalk. He stopped a few feet from his car and leaned against the wall, blinking in the cold as he replayed the last few minutes. 

The door to Hannibal's building opened while he was still standing there in the shadows. Hannibal and _his husband_ stepped out, and Grey gestured Hannibal down toward the street and to the sleek black sports car that waited there. He held up the keys. 

"For me? You shouldn't have, darling," Hannibal said, not sounding in the least like he meant it. He took the keys, and Grey drew him close for a kiss that lingered so long that Will looked away. Grey held the car door for Hannibal. They got in and pulled onto the road. 

Will stood there for another minute or two before he shook his head and got into his own car. He'd been aware that Hannibal had an extensive social life, and there was no reason he should keep Will apprised of it. If Will felt oddly unsettled by the whole thing, that was his problem. 

On the drive home, he did his best to put it out of his mind, but that last kiss kept bobbing back up to the surface of his thoughts like a rotten apple.


	46. sugarbaby hannibal 2

Hannibal wasn't available for Will's appointment the next week either. He called Will the evening before to tell him. "I'm sorry, Will. He's not usually in town for this long."

"It's fine." Hannibal wanted to spend time with his husband. Of course he did, especially if Grey traveled a lot. It was fine. 

That would've been the end of it if Will hadn't stopped at the liquor store on the way home from work the next day and spotted Hannibal just a second after Hannibal spotted him. 

Hannibal approached him with a warm expression and a bottle of wine in his hand. Will felt the fleeting urge to hide his own bottle. In his experience, nothing said drinking alone like whiskey. 

"It's good to see you," Hannibal said. 

Will nodded to his wine bottle. "For dinner?" 

"Yes. I'm cooking for Seymour tonight. Spiced duck breasts with a chili glaze. I think this will go nicely. An early meal and then the theater." 

Will's eyes caught on Hannibal's tie pin. The ruby almost blended in with the red silk. No three piece suit today. He'd dressed to show it off. A glance revealed matching cufflinks. 

"Hope you have a good time," Will said. 

"I'm sure we will. Thank you." 

Will put the whiskey back and made his escape. He stopped at another liquor store but ended up sitting in his car in the parking lot for twenty minutes, staring out the window. He could see the two of them out together at the theater. Eating at Hannibal's table. Undressing for bed. 

He shook his head sharply. It didn't do much good. He went in and bought his whiskey. In the end, that didn't do much good either, though he drank enough of it that night that the room moved gently around him when he finally lay down on his bed. 

It wasn't that he'd ever thought of Hannibal that way. Not really. It was more that he'd imagined a blank space in Hannibal's life, one he might fit into somehow. Finding out Hannibal had no room for him hurt more than it should have.


	47. sugarbaby hannibal 3

Hannibal woke to the scent of blood. He kept his eyes closed until he was certain that he was alone in the room. His head ached far more than two glasses of champagne could account for, and his mouth tasted foul. His thoughts ground slowly.

Seymour was gone, though the sheets still smelled of his cologne. Perhaps he had cut himself. It seemed unlikely. The house was too quiet, the scent of blood too pervasive. He sat up and opened his eyes. 

Nothing in the room. No sign of disturbance. Seymour's dressing gown was missing from the back of the door. Hannibal rose and took a knife from under the mattress. The blood scent grew stronger in the hall, stronger still as he descended the stairs.

Seymour's body lay near the harpsichord. Hannibal looked in distaste at the blood staining the floor and pooled around one wooden leg. He circled the body. Seymour had been shot twice in the head, evidently with a silenced weapon. If Hannibal had been drugged, he might have slept through gunshots, but the rest of the neighborhood would not have. 

He leaned against the arm of the sofa and reviewed the contents of his basement. The saws could be put away in a compartment under the floor. Had had no meat stored at the moment that would prove troublesome. Short of the police testing every surface for human DNA, he was safe, and they would have no reason to think the killer had gone down there. 

Then again, as Seymour's husband and the primary beneficiary of his will, Hannibal would be their first and best suspect. He had no alibi and could not manufacture one. He smiled briefly down at Seymour's body. How amusing, to be the obvious suspect in a murder he'd had no part in. Far more amusing than Seymour had ever been in life, though Hannibal had liked him well enough. 

Still, the most sensible course of action might be to dispose of the body himself and then, ideally, to find and dispose of the killer as well. But Hannibal would be the star suspect in his mysterious disappearance as well. 

Hannibal studied the body and considered. If he were to call the police, would he dial 911? Seymour was very much dead. It was hardly an emergency. He blinked once, slowly. No, he wouldn't call the police. He would call Will. 

It would be the most natural thing in the world. Will would come to comfort him, to offer what protection he could, and it would bind them more closely than anything Hannibal could have manufactured on his own. That alone would be worth the police investigation. Hannibal got his phone from the kitchen and dialed without further thought. 

Will picked up after five rings, voice rough with sleep. "Hello?"

"Will, it's Hannibal. Something terrible has happened. I need your help. Please."


	48. will and hannibal at troy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first line isn't mine; it's Homer's. Will's grudge against Apollo is because he's been cursed like Cassandra was, to speak the truth and never be believed.

The corpse pyres burned everywhere and did not stop burning. The scent of them set Hannibal's mouth watering, but the flesh was diseased. Their army had been stricken by Apollo in the way that the gods always acted: without reason, justice, or mercy. 

Hannibal stood on the rocks and stared out at the wine dark sea. Foam crested every wave, pallid as the fever-ridden flesh going up in smoke behind him. 

Will settled into a crouch by his side. He let his helmet fall to the rocks with a clang. "They're looking for you," he said. 

"They want to run."

"They want to go home," Will said. "Are you surprised?" 

"Not surprised. But there is always room for disappointment."

"It's been years."

"Honor is meant to last forever. Theirs has drained away like blood from a mortal wound. All I see around me is spite and cowardice." He snatched up a stone and hurled it at the waves. 

"Spite," Will murmured. 

Hannibal looked down at him. "I will have Troy." 

"And Helen?" 

Hannibal frowned at him, temper receding. "You cannot possibly believe-- Menelaus can roast her and eat her for all I care." 

Will gave him a half smile, shadowed in the growing dark. "They say she's the most beautiful woman in the world. I know how you feel about beautiful things." 

"You ought to." 

Hannibal fisted a hand in his hair and pulled until Will looked up at him. Hannibal held his gaze until something in Will's eyes softened. 

Will knocked his hand away and stood. "Burn the ships," he said. 

Hannibal blinked at him and then turned to the long line of black ships on the beach. He could see the flames in his mind already. "If they can't go home, they must fight." 

"I'm tired of all the talk," Will said. "They squabble over slaves and dead men's armor. Dogs are better behaved. This isn't what you promised me." 

"Yes, you could be at home. Farming. I'm sure you regret sailing with me." 

Will turned him away from the sea and pointed him toward the city walls. He leaned against Hannibal's back and spoke in his ear. "You want Troy, so take it. What are you waiting for?" 

"Why did you come with me, Will? What is it that you want?" 

"I'll tell you when we're done. And you will help me."

"Will I?"

"You'll owe me. You owe me already." 

That was certainly true. Will moved like a shade through the assembled Achaeans; Hannibal hadn't heard him speak a single word in company, but he didn't need to. He fought like something out of legend or nightmare. 

Hannibal reached back and laid a hand on his hip. "Burn the ships with me tonight."

Will breathed a laugh warm against his neck. "I'd be happy to." 

*

The blaze was something to see, though the smoke was now so thick in the air that it was hard to see anything at all. 

Hannibal and Will watched it together from a rocky point far down the beach: the eternal flame of the pyres, the smoldering ships, the camp fires left unattended by drunken warriors. Warm and wavering lights in the vast dark. The stars burned overhead, and the waves crashed and sent their corpse-pale foam bubbling up the cliff. 

Will leaned against him, watching the world burn. Hannibal breathed into the bend of his neck and set a hand at his waist. He didn't object. 

"Will you tell me nothing of what you want?" Hannibal asked. It wasn't the first time, but, for the first time, he felt some yielding in Will's body against his. 

"You won't believe me," Will said. 

"I think I would believe anything of you." 

"That's something I haven't heard in a while." Will tipped his head back and looked up at the stars. "I want Apollo's head on a spike. You think we can do that?"

Hannibal's heart lifted as if borne up on the smoke. "We will. Together."


	49. hades will and persephone hannibal

The first time, three souls came twisted up together. Will had never seen anything like it in the whole of his existence. He'd had to leave the underworld and seen the bodies before he could straighten things out, and it was no wonder the shades had been confused. 

Their physical forms had been dismembered and reassembled into a single being. The heads had been distributed vertically to replace heart, stomach, and testicals. It was a judgement and a sentence not unlike something he might have conceived of himself. When he reviewed the lives of the deceased, he found it not inappropriate and replicated it when he returned home. 

The second time, it was the soul of a hero, or at least one who claimed that title for himself. Agamemnon stormed into Hades with more vitality than Will's guests usually possessed. He stationed himself at Will's door and would not be moved.

"Well? What is it you want?" 

"I am on fire," Agamemnon said through his teeth. "I burn without ceasing."

"It's not my doing," Will said. 

"Then whose! That wretch who killed me? He burned me alive and I haven't stopped since."

"Anything done to you by a mortal should have no power here." 

He sent Agamemnon away, but he was curious enough to look into the matter. The man had been fattened on honey cakes and burned alive like an offering. The cakes were peculiar to Artemis, but she denied all responsibility. "No doubt he brought it on himself," she said. "Such an unpleasant man." 

Will went to the scene of the crime, to the blackened rock where the fire had burned. He found another fire burning, much smaller, and the scent of cooking meat. 

"Hello," a man said. "Are you hungry?"

Will approached his fire. More of the honey cakes were set out cooling on a rock shelf. "Do you sacrifice to Artemis?" Will asked. 

The man smiled. "On occasion. I have a black sheep if you would prefer." 

Will shrugged. He took a bite of one of the cakes and closed his eyes. "It's no wonder Agamemnon gorged himself on these. I thought you might have forced him to eat them." 

"There was no need. They were drugged, of course, and these are not."

"And you burned him on the rock over there."

"I did." 

"Why?" 

"It seemed appropriate," the man said. "He sacrificed his daughter to Artemis for a fair wind."

"Iphigenia's fine, you know. She runs with Artemis now."

"Mortal and yet not mortal. A condition of which I know something. And I might argue against that being an improvement of her condition." 

Will sat next to his fire. "All right. You clearly know who I am. Who are you?"

"Shouldn't the lord of the underworld know all the souls that will pass into his domain?" The man smiled. "But perhaps I won't. My name is Hannibal." 

Hannibal served them both from the stewpot. It was as good as the honey cakes. 

"Why don't I know you, Hannibal?" Will asked. 

"When Ouranos was castrated by Kronos, Aphrodite was born from his ejaculate and the Furies were born from his blood. I was born from his tears. Can I die, do you think? I've never been sure." 

"You'd be better off asking Aphrodite than me."

Hannibal's grin showed his teeth. "I haven't spoken to her. I'm closer to the Furies."

"That doesn't surprise me. Agamemnon still burns. Are you going to keep sending me these damaged souls?" 

"Oh, yes. I think so. There are so many who deserve my attention. I've barely begun." 

"Then I suppose I'll see you again," Will said. 

Hannibal agreed that he would. He packed up half a dozen honey cakes for Will to take back to the underworld with him.


	50. hades will and persephone hannibal 2

Time passed in the way that it did in Will's kingdom, where night and day had little meaning and any given hour might curve back around to its beginning without notice. Will continued to eat the cakes Hannibal had given him, a seemingly inexhaustible supply, as sweet and fresh as the day Hannibal had given them to him. He remembered too often the smell of grass and the feel of the sun on his skin. 

He walked along Lethe at the edge of Elysium and along the Styx until he came to the gates. Cerberus greeted him with a bone-shaking howl that sent the nearby souls to the ground in abject, trembling fear. Will fed Cerberus one of the cakes, broken into three parts, one for each drooling mouth. Cerberus nosed at his hand for more and nearly knocked him over. 

"That's enough. They're probably bad for you." Cerberus made a mournful noise and lay down. "I wonder if they make you miss the sun too," Will said quietly. He gave each monstrous head a scratch behind the ears and kept going. Up. 

He took with him a box made from bone and a number of half-formed ideas. The overworld formed around him with a flicker, and he found himself in a field of flowers. Aphrodite stood on the crest of a low hill, pinning up her red curls. 

"Freddie," Will said. 

She turned with a sweet smile and then she saw who he was and let the facade drop. "Oh, it's you. Don't kill my flowers."

Will looked around. He didn't kill -- flowers or anything else -- but he wondered now: if he did, would they end up down there with him? Could he cover Tartarus in poppies? 

"What?" Freddie said. "What do you want? What are doing here?" 

Will offered her the box. She opened it and eyed the cakes inside.

"Just try one," Will said. 

She did, and closed eyes in pleasure. "You have my attention. Although if you stole these from Artemis, I'm telling." 

"Your brother made them." 

"My -- what?" 

Will studied her face. "He calls himself Hannibal. He sends me damaged souls. I came to find out if you know anything about him." 

"I didn't know he existed," Freddie said. "Where did he come from? Where has he been all this time?" 

"He says he's talked to the Furies. They didn't say anything to you?" 

She wrinkled her nose. "What would I be doing talking to them? Nobody talks to them if they can help it." 

That, Will had to admit, was a fair point. "If you hear anything, I'd appreciate it if you let me know."

"Why should I?" she said. 

Will shrugged. "He seemed pretty curious whether he was mortal or not. I can think of three ways for him to find out. Assuming he doesn't want to kill himself, you're an easier target than the Furies." 

She gave him a poisonous look and melted away into the flowers. 

A movement of air behind him made Will turn. Hannibal was standing very close. He wore the clothes of a mortal and his hair in a grizzled braid over one shoulder. He was holding a crimson flower that Will didn't recognize. "For you," Hannibal said. 

Will took it and held it to his nose. It smelled like blood and honey, thick, sweet, and metallic. When he looked up to say thank you, Hannibal was already gone.


	51. will dies while hannibal's in prison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> See title of chapter for the prompt I got. 
> 
> WARNINGS: for major character death, minor character death, just...death in general. There's a lot of death and sadness.

Hannibal looked up from his drawing. Alana stood in front of the clear barrier, far enough toward the back of the room that her face was hidden in shadows. She held something in her hands, a manila folder.

"Is that for me? It's not my newspapers. Why have they not come today?"

She placed the folder in the tray and slid it through to him. She hesitated a moment. "I'm sorry, Hannibal." 

She turned and left. Hannibal could hear the click of her heels for a long time. He suspected he would hear them again in his memory more often than he would prefer. 

He finished the drawing he was working on. It was one of Will standing in his stream. The focus was on his hands as they held the rod and cast the line. It wasn't right. Will's hands were a difficult, delicate matter. 

Slowly, he rose and crossed the room to the drawer. Inside the folder was a copy of Will's death certificate. Hannibal took it with him to his table and laid it out over his drawing. It had been, he decided, perhaps the kindest way she could have told him. 

*

Because of that, when he killed her, he did it quickly. He cut her throat in her office and stayed with her while she died. She tried to speak, most likely to plead for the lives of her wife and son. Hannibal stroked her hair. 

"Haven't they lived in fear for long enough?" he asked. "It will be better to get it over with." 

Better to have done this long ago. He had left too many loose ends in Baltimore. All of this could have been avoided by cutting deeper and sooner. 

*

He reached Jack's house before the news of his escape did. Jack opened the door looking ten years older instead of not quite three. Hannibal stabbed him in the neck and pushed him into the house. His wheezing pleas, of course, were for Bella. 

Bella, when her time came, did not beg. Hannibal gave her morphine. "I should have let you do it the first time," he said. "I apologize." 

*

Margot, upon news of Alana's death, had taken the boy and retreated to a cabin in a deeply forested region of Maine. It reminded Hannibal strongly of the woods of his youth, especially as the snow started to fall. 

He killed thirteen guards and left them as they lay, some bleeding red onto white and some with their necks at uncomfortable angles. 

He broke Margot's neck in her sleep. He had liked her from the start. 

That left only the boy, Morgan, but his room was empty. It smelled of recent occupation, of toothpaste, the paper of worn storybooks, Margot's perfume, and the soft scent of young human. Hannibal breathed into the boy's pillow and stepped out of the room, scenting the air. 

The trail led him out of the house entirely, and he followed small footprints through the snow to a stable. The boy was standing on tiptoes to touch the nose of a horse, which bent down and snorted softly into his hand. 

"Hello," Hannibal said. 

Morgan looked at him. "'Lo. This's my horse."

"What is his name?" 

"Pie. D'you have a horse?"

"I did when I was a child. His name was Cesar." 

"Pie is better. He's the best horse." 

Hannibal approached and looked down at him. "Morgan, do you know who I am?"

Morgan shook his head. 

Had Margot told him of Alana's death? Was he old enough to understand what it meant? Hannibal remembered Mischa at three. She had never truly grasped that their parents weren't coming back for them, and she had seen their mother's blood on the snow, her shattered face. 

Will's stepson would grasp it. He had looked to be twelve or thirteen. Did he mourn for Will? Hannibal had planned to find them next. 

Morgan dragged a stool out from the corner and stood on it. He reached into a bag and came out with a handful of oats, which Pie lipped greedily from his palm. 

*

Morgan had nightmares often in the first year. Hannibal held him while he cried and felt only distance, as if this were happening to someone else in another world. 

"Why won't Mama come back?" Morgan asked him. Hannibal didn't know which of his mothers he meant, but he asked for Mama more often than Mommy. 

"Sometimes the people we love must leave us."

"I hate it!" Morgan's little face was wet with tears and red with anger.

"Yes," Hannibal said. "So do I."


	52. jeeves hannibal and wooster will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Jeeves & Wooster AU.

"Really anyone who can shine shoes and make coffee," Will had told the man at the agency. "As long as he doesn't mind dogs." 

The man had paused, pen over paper. "How many dogs, sir?"

"Seven."

"I was given to understand that you live in the city, sir?"

"Yes, that's right." 

The man had given him A Look. 

Will had gone home without much hope and to bed after too much to drink. He'd had a summons from Uncle Frederick to appear at his country estate for the weekend, and the thought of facing it sans dogs and sans valet was casting a shadow over a situation that was already so poorly lit as to be considered gloomy if not actually stygian. 

He woke in the morning, still filled with despair and now blinded by a hangover that made his head throb in time to the piercing buzz of the doorbell. He staggered to the door in his pajamas with the sole intention of stopping the noise and going back to bed.

When he yanked the door open, the man on the other side spoke before he could. "Mr. Graham? My name is Hannibal Lecter. I believe you advertised for a valet." 

Will blinked at him and rubbed hard at his eyes. Lecter only looked at him with a mild expression as the dogs erupted from around Will's feet. 

"There's seven of them," Will said. 

"Yes, so the agency informed me." 

"Can you make coffee?" 

Lecter gave him a very faint smile. "And shine shoes, sir." 

And he hadn't flinched at Will's appearance or the mess visible from the front door. Wil waved him in. "You're engaged." 

"Thank you, sir." 

"I'm going back to sleep."

"Yes, sir." 

By the time Will woke up again, Lecter had cleaned the place so thoroughly that Will barely recognized it, cooked for the dogs, made coffee fit for the gods, and delivered it on a silver salver that Will definitely did not own. 

Lecter was now looking through his suits in search of something suitable for the day. He didn't look happy with what he saw. "We'll need to consider your wardrobe, sir."


	53. petshop of horrors hannibal

Will stepped out of the oppressive New Orleans summer heat and into glacial air conditioning and a white modern kitchen. He looked down at the mess on the floor. And up the walls, actually. The spatter pattern was impressive. It was the third one this month. 

Barnes waved him over, and Will skirted the edges of the area taped off by forensics. Barnes handed him a receipt in an evidence bag. "You recognize this?" 

Will looked it over. "It's the same pet shop."

"Yeah, it is. Do you still want to go and talk to that guy?" 

"Sergeant McKenzie said it was such a dumb idea he should arrest me for obstructing the investigation." 

"You better leave before he gets here then." 

*

The pet shop was jammed in between a bar and an abandoned shop front with windows inhabited by saints' statues and dead-eyed dolls. The narrow facade had been painted red. It had no sign over the door. When Will pushed through into the shop, it smelled of incense and … soup. 

"One moment!" called a voice. A man came through a doorway at the back of the room. He was wearing a white apron and drying his hands on a kitchen towel. "I apologize. I don't usually get customers this time of day. How may I help you?" 

Will showed the guy his badge. "Detective Graham, homicide. Are you the owner?"

"I am. Hannibal Lecter." 

He held out his hand to shake, which most people didn't do when unexpectedly confronted by the police. Will took it out of reflex. His hand was warm, a little rough on the palm, faintly damp from whatever he'd been doing in the back room. Lecter caught his glance. 

"The kitchen," he said. "Perhaps we could speak in there? I would like to make sure my soup has settled at a simmer before I leave it. And the madeleines will be cooled by now." 

Will sat on a stool at the granite topped island. Lecter poured him coffee and emptied a tray of madeleines, half onto a cooling rack and half onto a plate. He dusted the plate with powdered sugar and set it in front of Will with a slight bow. 

Will hadn't eaten since breakfast, and everything in the kitchen smelled amazing. He took a bite and then he took another. It was warm and rich and light, almost shocking in how good it tasted. "Thank you," he said. 

Lecter gave him a satisfied nod that said he knew exactly how good they were. He watched Will over the rim of his coffee cup. "You strike me as a man who spends a great deal of time alone. One who could perhaps use a companion." 

"I don't have time for a pet," Will said. "I work too much." 

"Something independent."

"I might manage to take care of a cockroach, and I've already got plenty of those." He pulled out a photo. "Do you recognize this man, Mr. Lecter?" 

The interview went downhill from there, at least from an investigative viewpoint. Lecter had records of all the sales, reasonable prices, signed contracts that detailed the care required by each pet he'd sold. Nothing the least bit shady. If anything, he'd gone above and beyond in ensuring the animals would be treated well. 

"Are they all right? The creatures?" Lecter asked. 

Will studied him. "Yeah. They're all fine. Would you be interested in taking them back? The relatives don't want them."

"I'd be happy to. That sort of care is not a responsibility that everyone can take on." He paused. "Forgive me for raising the subject again, but is there nothing I can show you? I have a wider selection than you might believe." 

"I used to have dogs." Will looked down at his coffee. "When I was a kid. I work twelve hour days now. My apartment's tiny. Wouldn't be fair to them." 

"I understand," Lecter said.

*

Will dreamed that night. He was walking through a forest, following a trail of blood. He came to the edge of a clearing lit by moonlight. In the center stood a massive black stag. It turned to face him, eyes shining, iridescent feathers standing up all along its back. 

He came awake with a start, but it wasn't the dream that had woken him. It was the feeling of hot breath on the back of his neck.


	54. happy post fall fic

"When I said fried fish, this wasn't quite what I had in mind." Will looked over the table with bemusement. Hannibal had taken the walleye he'd pulled out of the frozen lake that morning, turned it into tempura, and served it with a cold noodle salad and steaming miso soup. 

"Do you object?" 

"No. It looks great. I was just thinking more hush puppies and coleslaw, less pickled ginger. But I'm not complaining." 

Hannibal poured tea for them. Outside, the wind blew and piled snow up around the house. They ate dinner to the sound of it seeking a way in. A dust of ice crystals slipped under the door and melted on the doormat. 

"It's been a month," Hannibal said. 

"Does that make this our anniversary?"

"Of our death or our birth?" 

"Not the kind of anniversary I was talking about," Will said. He rose to put another log on the fire and stayed down on one knee in front of it, shifting blackened wood until the new one caught. "You want to take a walk after dinner?" 

In the silence that followed, he could hear Hannibal contemplating the storm outside. The wind would drop soon. It died down most nights a few hours after sunset. 

"Where would we walk?"

"Out on the lake."

"Very well." 

They set out after dinner in thick parkas and hats pulled down over their ears. Will, more memorable but less recognizable due to the scar on his cheek, had bought clothes for both of them in the nearest town. Hannibal hadn't gone farther than the wood pile until tonight, and seeing him bundled up in safety orange and a brown knit cap made Will smile, though he took care to bury it in his scarf. 

Snow blew in twisting streamers across the ice. They took each step with care. The moon, a little off full, reflected in the black ice and lit up the air bubbles trapped in it like stars. The wind was easing. Will pulled his scarf down and tasted the scent of snow. 

"We'll have another four inches by morning," Hannibal said. 

"There's worse things." 

"I have spent the last three years listening to the weather outside. We might have gone somewhere warmer."

"You can go anywhere you want. I'm not your jailer," Will said. 

"You are. You always were." 

"You know, if you get a running start, you can slide about halfway across the lake." 

Hannibal looked at him like he'd lost his mind, which was pretty funny, considering. Will gave him half a grin, one side of his face held still out of habit, though it no longer hurt much. He found a spot where the blowing snow was thick enough to get some traction, took a few steps, and slid on his toes, arms out for balance, stars rushing by beneath his feet. 

"Come on," he called. 

"I don't think so." 

"You pissed in public for three years, Hannibal. You don't have any dignity left to lose. Come on!" 

The nuances of Hannibal's expression were lost in the dim light, but Will could imagine them. Hannibal took a few running steps anyway and then braced his feet, sliding closer with unsurprising grace. He would've sailed right past if Will hadn't caught him.

They stood close. Will had Hannibal by the elbows, and Hannibal held onto the front of his coat. "Was there a point to all this?" Hannibal said. 

"You don't sound nearly as annoyed as you think you do." 

"I am not annoyed. I'm cold."

"Okay, now you sound annoyed." 

Hannibal sighed through his nose and gave Will a hard stare over the folds of scarf that covered his mouth. 

Will tugged his scarf down and kissed him. His lips were very warm, and the brief touch of his tongue was searing. 

"I wasn't expecting this," Hannibal said. He sounded almost breathless, though that might've been the cold. Will felt much the same. 

"I know. If you had been, we would've gotten here by now. But you left it up to me, and I couldn't just … I suddenly understood your need for dramatic gestures." 

Hannibal looked around them at the black ice and the black sky, the moon and the snow covered trees. He smiled. "Well done," he said. 

"Okay. Let's go back in. I can't feel my fingers." 

Hannibal took his hand as they started back. They clutched at each other for balance as they made their way back to shore.


	55. will's dog dies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: animal death 
> 
> The prompt was for Hannibal's reaction to one of Will's dogs dying.

Normally, Hannibal made coffee in the morning. Will let the dogs out and threw sticks for them until the coffee was ready and Hannibal called them all back inside for breakfast. 

This morning, when Will held the door open and whistled, only two of the three dogs raised themselves and shook and scrambled toward him. They stopped almost at once and returned to nose at their comrade. Will had found all three on the same day and had named them Harpo, Groucho, and Zeppo. Will knelt next to Zeppo now and laid a hand on his flank. 

Hannibal saw the verdict in the blank sadness on his face. "Take them out," he said. 

Will looked up at him for a long time and then nodded. He rose and called the other two. It took him a minute to get them away from the body and out the door. When he had gone, Hannibal got a towel and wrapped Zeppo up in it. The body was cold. He had been old, stiff, muzzle white. The other two seemed younger. They might last some considerable time yet. He hoped so, for Will's sake. 

Will had taken Harpo and Groucho out into the front yard, and so Hannibal took Zeppo into the back. He laid the towel-wrapped body under a tree for the moment and went back inside. It seemed likely that Will would wish to bury it, but he didn't want to make assumptions. 

Instead, he poured coffee and took Will's coat from the closet. Will was standing barefoot on their porch, arms wrapped around himself. Hannibal draped the coat around his shoulders. Will leaned into his side as they watched Harpo and Groucho charge through the frosted grass. "I put the body in the back," Hannibal said. "The ground shouldn't be too hard yet." 

"I'll do it after breakfast," Will said. 

"I will help you." 

After a second, Will nodded. He took a sip of his coffee. "I always did this alone."

"You have done most things alone. We both have." 

"Do you ever think maybe it was easier that way?"

"Perhaps it was. But I still prefer this." 

Will turned toward him enough to rest his forehead on Hannibal's shoulder. "I'll miss him." 

"I know. In some ways, I will too." 

Will looked up at that. "Really?" 

"He was always impeccably behaved. Much better than the other two," Hannibal said. 

Will smiled a little. "Yeah. He was a good dog." 

"Yes, he was." Hannibal led Will back inside and steered him into the kitchen to chop dill for the eggs.


	56. hannibal saves will's family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The premise for this was that Hannibal didn't send Dolarhyde after Will's family but rather showed up just in time to help Will stop him.

The Red Dragon lay dead in the snow under the shadow of the pine trees. Will could see his wings. He let the axe drop from his hand. Hannibal knelt next to the body. A sledgehammer lay next to him, and he clutched Molly's favorite kitchen knife. He looked up at Will, blood like a red mask across the lower half of his face, in his teeth, dripping down his chin. 

Will heard movement behind him. He turned. Molly stood in the doorway. She held Walter behind her. He was trying to get out of the house, to see what had happened. 

"Keep him inside," Will said, too loud. 

Molly pushed Walter back in and followed him. The door closed, and Will was relieved. Relieved to have his family gone. Relieved to be alone with Hannibal. 

Hannibal hadn't spoken since he showed up, right on Dolarhyde's heels. Will staggered around the body and fell beside him. He'd meant to ask if Hannibal was hurt, but their eyes met and it hardly seemed to matter anymore. Of course he was hurt. They both were. They'd been doling out mortal wounds to each other since they'd met. 

"I don't want to go back to prison," Hannibal said. 

"So leave," Will said. He felt like he was choking on something. He didn't know if it was the words or his own blood. "I won't stop you." 

Hannibal swallowed. The dry click of his throat and the brightness of his eyes filled the night woods. "I still can't leave without you," he said. 

Will pushed himself to his feet. He looked toward the kitchen door, the light inside, the shapes moving in silhouette. He turned away from them and held out his hand to Hannibal. "Then let's go," he said.


	57. color palette drabbles

**red**

Will didn't remember the long drive. He didn't remember the nightmare before it except as fire at the edges of his memory. He had a real fire now, warm and cheerful by the edge of a stream. Trees bowed over his campsite. His dogs slept in a circle around him. He carved a fishhook and dug red worms for bait. 

He had a blanket. He had his rifle. He had the sense of a coming storm that might cool the fire in his head. Flame and shadow lapped over his hands as water lapped at the banks of the stream. 

**white**

Snow filtered down through pale ghost leaves and bare sycamore branches that glowed like the moon as the sun sank. Will cooked his fish on a spit over the campfire. He fed his dogs first and then picked the steaming flesh apart and ate it with his fingers. It burned him and warmed him at the same time. 

The stars came out overhead. Snow built up around them, but the cold kept its distance. His dogs came to lie close on all sides. He stroked their shaggy fur. Snowflakes settled in it and hung, momentarily preserved, before they melted away. 

**gold**

Before dawn, Hannibal sat down next to him. To Will's eyes, he seemed lit from within like a lamp. Like Will's house across the fields. 

"How did you find me?" Will asked. 

"You left a map open on your kitchen table. Once I found your car, it was easy enough to track you. Here, drink this." 

Will took the thermos from him and poured out a cup of steaming, honey-colored liquid. He took a sip. It tasted like summer. 

"Did you plan to come back to us?" Hannibal said. 

"I don't know." Will looked at him. "But you can stay."


	58. if you think you look like satan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for a prompt about this post: http://emungere.tumblr.com/post/138993032539/bamf-happens

Someone had clipped out the ad and left it dead center on Hannibal's desk, alongside his coffee and his tablet:

_WANTED -- Model to pose for statue of "Satan After the Fall." If you think you look like Satan, please apply to studio of Will Graham at…_

The address was in Greenwich Village, near Washington Square Park. 

He pressed the intercom button. "Abigail, is there something you'd like to tell me?"

"No idea what you're talking about, boss," she said, a sing-song lilt in her voice. 

"This is not the first time someone in my employ has compared me to the Prince of Darkness."

"I'm sure it's not," she said brightly. 

He sighed inwardly. It had been one of the associates, probably Freddie Lounds. Abigail liked her and would cover for her past the bounds of reason. He looked down at the ad. At least this was an original tack to take. _If you think you look like Satan._

He came to an abrupt decision. "Please shift my meeting with Bella to lunch if possible. I'll be taking the afternoon off."

*

Will Graham's studio was on the fourth floor of an old brownstone between a deli and an antique store. Hannibal walked up creaking stairs and paused in front of the correct door. He wasn't entirely certain what he was doing here. There was something compelling about the phrasing of the ad, a suggestion of intent on the artist's part, perhaps, a subtly expressed desire to capture more than outward appearance. Hannibal didn't know that he wanted to pose, but he did want to meet Will Graham. He knocked. 

A thud sounded from inside, and then a blare of music, and then silence. The door was yanked open by a slim young man with dark curls and stained jeans. He wore no shirt and no shoes and he held a large knife in one hand. He stared at Hannibal with his mouth open just a little, eyes very wide and very blue. "Tell me you're here about the ad," he said. 

"I am."

Will stepped out into the hall to circle him, still staring. Hannibal looked through the open doorway into a small room filled with light from a bank of windows on the south side. Wood shavings littered the floor. Half of a stag's head had emerged from a block what might be olive wood. A row of metal feathers with serrated edges lay on a table. Hannibal stepped toward them involuntarily. 

"Those are for you," Will said. 

Hannibal looked back at him. "For the wings."

"Yeah." 

"If I agree to pose for you." 

"You're going to pose for me," Will said. He sounded certain, and he looked hungry. 

"I have a demanding schedule." 

"I'll work around it. We can do it at night if you need to." 

Hannibal picked up one of the feathers. The edge looked as sharp as a knife blade. "You don't wish to see what other prospects your advertisement brings you?"

Will made a dismissive gesture. "I've seen. An ad for Satan in New York City? I wasn't expecting much and I didn't get it. Until now." 

"It's gratifying to be so desired," Hannibal said. 

"Is that a yes?" 

He set the feather down and touched one carved wooden antler. "I believe it is."


	59. focus

The blue-gray farmhouse was hemmed in by cornfields, now cut to stubble and covered in snow by the Illinois winter. A steady thud and crack came from the garage: Will's axe hitting logs and splitting them down the center and into quarters. 

Hannibal had suggested that a fire might be pleasant, and then this had happened. He had watched for five minutes before he had to go inside. 

Will's body had come into focus slowly for him, a piece at a time, shoulders first as his stab wound healed. Hannibal had taken out the stitches and touched the scar and seen, quite suddenly, the roll of muscle and smooth skin all around it. 

He had watched the bruises on Will's back from the impact with the ocean fade to green and yellow and finally disappear, and then he had seen the way Will moved in the mornings, freshly out of bed, stretching, bending, flexing. His thighs, which Hannibal had certainly seen before, now pulled at his attention. Will's neck. His chest. The delicate crook of his arm with its blue veins. 

Hannibal had drawn him many times from memory in his cell, but when he sat down with a pencil now, he ended up burning the results. They were not accurate. Too evocative, too fluid, too idealized. In retrospect, it had taken Hannibal an unforgivably long time to work out why. 

There was love and then there was desire. He did not usually care to mix the two. Now it seemed he didn't have a choice. He never had a choice when it came to Will. 

*

That night, they sat in front of the fire after dinner to finish their wine. Will held the bowl of his glass in his cupped hand, nails occasionally grazing the rim. Hannibal found himself wondering how that would feel on his skin.

Most people were fairly easy to manipulate when it came to sex. They either wanted it, or it was simple to make them believe that they did, simple to produce the correct cues and opportunities. Will was now nearly impossible to manipulate. He weighed Hannibal's words and actions on a finely balanced scale. Even casual inquiries about the day's weather were at least briefly examined. 

Any touch, any oblique flirtation, anything out of the ordinary would be dissected until Hannibal's desire sat quivering and naked under the knife of Will's mind, and Hannibal wasn't certain he could stand it, regardless of Will's reaction. 

Will put a hand on Hannibal's shoulder, and Hannibal whipped his head toward him, fearing the dissection had already begun. Will was only looking at him mildly. "Hannibal, what? You've barely said two words all day." 

"Perhaps I have nothing that needs to be said." 

"You always have something to say." Will's smile was soft and fond. 

Hannibal looked resolutely away, toward the fire. If subtlety was out of the question, that left silence, which he didn't think he could maintain forever. Or direct attack. "Have you had sex with a man?" he asked. 

He could almost hear Will blinking at him over the crackle of the fire. 

"I -- yeah? Blowjobs anyway. A few times." The question, the dissection was palpable in the pause that followed, but Will didn't ask. He leaned back against the couch. In the glass over a watercolor that hung on the opposite wall, Hannibal saw him take a sip of wine. "What about you?" 

"No," Hannibal said. "Never. I had assumed--" He had assumed so many things about his relationship with Will. Almost all of them had turned out to be wrong. 

"You assumed you were only lusting after my brain and now it turns out you want my body?" Will said, dry as the crackling wood in the fire, but still so fond. 

Hannibal said nothing. He couldn't. 

Will put a hand on the inside of his thigh. It felt hotter than Mason's branding iron. "Stop worrying. You can have that too."


	60. post fall sub hannibal

Will by the front door, keys in his hand. He could hear Hannibal in the next room, pointedly not asking him any questions. "Going out," Will said. 

"Where?" 

"To get a drink." 

"We have wine and beer. Whiskey if you want it." 

"To get a drink at a bar," Will said. "I'll see you later. Don't wait up." 

"Will."

He paused, hand on the doorknob. "What?" 

"If you're going out for sex, let me be clear: you don't need to." 

Will jerked the door open and left without answering. 

When he got to the bar, he found it almost unbearably loud and hot, cigarette smoke a haze in the air. He had come out with the intent of picking someone up. Now, of course, he could only think of Hannibal. 

*

Three beers and three hours later, he went home. The house was dark. He headed for his room with relief. They'd probably have to talk about this, but he'd much rather do it after coffee. 

A light shone under the door of his room. It stood open an inch. He stopped and then set a hand to the wood and pushed it slowly open. Hannibal was naked, bent over the foot of his bed. Candles gave the room and his skin a warm glow. He looked back over his shoulder at Will. "We don't need to discuss it. You can do as you like with me." 

Will couldn't look away from him. The soft light on his back, the shine between his cheeks where he'd slicked himself, the depth of his eyes. Will stepped forward once and then again and then somehow he had his hands on Hannibal's ass, grabbing, squeezing, and his dick was so hard it throbbed to his pulse. 

Hannibal made a soft noise and bent lower, head cushioned on his folded arms. Will's hands shook as he opened his jeans. He pushed in, and it was so easy, one long, hot, wet slide. He groaned in relief, so loud in the silent room that it seemed to bounce off the walls. He started to fuck. 

*

Will tried to ask him about it in the morning -- a halfhearted attempt -- and Hannibal changed the subject so aggressively that he didn't try again. 

*

Once or twice a week from that point on, Will found Hannibal in his room at night, naked and ready to fuck. Sometimes Will reached around to jerk him off. Sometimes he didn't. Hannibal said nothing either way. He only took what Will gave him and continued to resist any attempt to discuss it. 

"At least tell me you're doing this because you want to," Will said finally. "If you think this is the only way to keep me--"

"I want to," Hannibal said. He left Will standing in the kitchen and went into the garden to pick tomatoes. 

*

They were nearing the dusty, sticky end of summer. Will lay in the hammock out back of the house, one foot on the ground to keep it moving. He wore shorts and nothing else and balanced a glass of iced tea on his stomach. It was mostly empty now, ice melting in the bottom, condensation rolling off onto his skin. 

He was wondering if Hannibal would come to his room tonight, wondering if it was okay to ask. He imagined the heat between their bodies. He'd open the window first, let in the humid breeze and the heavy scent of mimosa blossoms. 

Maybe he'd put Hannibal on his back this time, so he could see his face. He wondered if Hannibal would let him. What it would be like. He slid a hand down between his legs and pressed down over his cock. 

He felt the weight of Hannibal's shadow before he heard him. He opened his eyes but left his hand where it was. Hannibal stood over him, dressed lightly in linen, two buttons undone at his throat. He had his eyes on the bulge of Will's erection through the thin material of his shorts. The heat had brought a faint flush to his cheeks. 

Will studied his face. "You want something?" 

Hannibal wet his lips. "Do you?" 

Will rubbed his palm deliberately along the length of his cock. "What if I do?" 

Hannibal closed his eyes and swayed briefly before he got to his knees. He unzipped Will's shorts and got his dick out and licked all along it in one long, broad swipe of his tongue. Will caught his breath. Hannibal looked up at him. Waiting. 

"Keep going," Will said. The words came out rough. "Put your mouth on me." 

Hannibal's lids fluttered half-closed. He took the head in his mouth and sucked, cheeks hollowed, lips tight. Will hooked one leg over his shoulder and pulled him closer. Hannibal came easily, took him deeper. 

Will had never seen his face before when they did this. He looked helpless, like something had him in its jaws and wouldn't stop shaking him. Will laid a hand on his cheek, and Hannibal pressed into the touch with an almost animal sound. He kept sucking, harder now. 

"That's good," Will told him softly. "Perfect. You're perfect." Will stroked his cheek and his hair. Hannibal closed his eyes and took him down to the base. The tears might have been from the strain of swallowing him down. They didn't run down his cheeks, just clung to his lashes and dampened them to dark spikes. 

"Harder," Will said. He spread his thighs wide, every muscle tensed and trembling. He gripped Hannibal's hair, not as gentle as he wanted to be. Hannibal's mouth was hot and wet, and Will's cock was in his throat, fucking deep. Will came with a final thrust and a low, hoarse sound that Hannibal echoed as he swallowed. 

Semen leaked from the corner of Hannibal's mouth. He thumbed it back in and then sucked his thumb clean. Will closed his fist hard on the fabric of the hammock, panting, sweating like he'd been taken by a sudden fever. "Is this what you want? What are we doing, Hannibal?"

Hannibal staggered to his feet. That shaken, helpless expression hadn't left him. "I don't know." 

"Don't walk away from me this time. Come here." Will pulled him down into the hammock. Gravity and sweat stuck them together at the lowest point. The ropes creaked against the wood of the tree as they swayed. Hannibal was so hard that the outline of his cock was obscenely visible through thin white linen. "You want me to touch you?"

"I told you. You can do as you like." 

"You also said you wanted it. So ask for what you want."

"That is what I want," Hannibal said quietly. "I want to know--" He opened his mouth and closed it again and gave Will the shadow of a smile. "Perhaps I want to know what would happen." 

Will put an arm around him and settled Hannibal's head on his shoulder so he could speak into his ear. He pushed a hand down into Hannibal's pants and closed it around his cock. "What do you think will happen?" 

Hannibal shook his head. His hips jerked up. "I don't know, Will. You are beyond me." 

Will slid his fist slowly up the slick shaft and down again. "I'm not beyond you. I'm exactly what you made me." 

Hannibal put a hand on Will's chest. His breath shook. "Do you truly still believe that?" 

Will considered, stroking him, watching his hand move inside Hannibal's pants. He rubbed his thumb over the cock head and felt the wire tension in Hannibal's body. "I guess we'll find out."

Hannibal shuddered and came silently into his hand. He held onto Will through it, grasping at his arm. Will pulled Hannibal on top of him so that the mess smeared between them. He licked the taste of salt from Hannibal's neck. 

*

"I want you in my room tonight," Will said. 

Hannibal looked up from the growing pile of diced onion on his cutting board and nodded. "As usual?" 

"Earlier. And on your back." Will watched as he started chopping again, the smooth dip of his arm contrasting with the tension in his shoulders. "Legs spread. Pillow under your ass." 

"I will be there." 

Somehow, after that, they ate dinner together. It wasn't even awkward, and Will couldn't understand it. But then he couldn't understand how anything worked between them now. 

*

Will's bedroom was the larger of the two in the house. He'd taken the one with the en suite for himself, and Hannibal hadn't complained. Will had honestly only done it to pick a fight, but he was glad of it now. It gave him a place to go when Hannibal's presence filled up the rest of the rooms. 

Sunlight poured through thin white curtains in the morning. By evening, the cooler westerly breezes came into the room along with the high-pitched keen of some mournful local insect. The mimosa tree grew just outside his window. He could smell it all day long. 

Tonight, in addition to all of that, he had Hannibal naked on his bed, legs spread, waiting to be fucked. 

Will undressed and put his shorts and T-shirt in the laundry hamper. He washed his face and hands and then he knelt between Hannibal's legs. He'd been half-hard when he walked into the room just from thinking about it. The sight of Hannibal's bare skin and invitingly wet hole did the rest. He put his hands on Hannibal's thighs and pushed inside him. 

Hannibal watched him as he sank in and didn't close his eyes until the last second when Will was fully seated in his body. He flung one arm out across the bed then and grasped at the sheets. 

"You are so goddamn frustrating." Will ground his hips forward. Only the faintest flicker of response showed on Hannibal's face. 

"I feel I've been -- more than accommodating," Hannibal said in a pause between thrusts. "Is there something--" He wet his lips briefly as Will's hand closed his cock. "Something else you wanted?" 

Will wanted to know what his game was. He didn't think, even now, that Hannibal would just tell him if he asked. He wasn't even sure Hannibal knew. He slowed his thrusts and picked up the lube to pour it over Hannibal's cock. It would leave a mess on the sheets. Maybe he'd tell Hannibal to change them afterward and see what happened. 

"I want you to come first," Will told him. "And look at me when you do it. Are you close?" 

Hannibal nodded once. 

"Have you been thinking about this?" Will asked. 

"Yes." 

"Since I told you? You were distracted at dinner." He rolled his hips forward. "You almost used the wrong fork." 

"We only have one sort," Hannibal said, frowning faintly, almost cross. Will squeezed his cock and watched him tip his head back against the pillow. 

"Joke," Will said. He put a hand under Hannibal's knee and pressed his leg back toward his chest. He sank in deeper. "Eyes open." 

Hannibal looked up at him, startled, as if he hadn't realized they'd closed. He blinked twice, refocusing on Will's face. 

"Tell me what you were thinking," Will said. He stroked Hannibal steadily, thumb sliding over the head, hand tight around him. Faster and faster. 

"Anticipation," Hannibal said quickly. "And -- I wondered why." His hips jerked up once, and then he was still again. "Why the change. What you sought to find. If you would find it." 

"What do you think? Will I?" 

Hannibal opened his mouth to answer, but he didn't make a sound. His back arched as he started to come, muscles winding tight, face drawn and shadowed. He didn't close his eyes once. 

Will bent over him and kissed him, tongue pushing into his mouth. He cupped Hannibal's cheek. "What do you want? Right now? Tell me." 

Hannibal wound an arm around Will's neck with caution, as if that might be a step too far. "This," he said. "This all night." 

Will wasn't going to last all night, not with Hannibal's body so tight and hot around him. But maybe that didn't matter. He kissed Hannibal again and pressed his legs wider and snapped his hips forward. He caught Hannibal's breath in his mouth. Now Hannibal had his eyes closed, and Will watched the flicker of expressions cross his face as he fucked him. Hannibal's mouth opened and shaped his name, and Will came inside him. 

As soon as Will rolled off him, Hannibal sat up and started to get to his feet. Will caught his arm. "You said all night." 

Hannibal paused, frozen, on the edge of the bed. "I didn't expect to be taken literally." 

"Too bad." 

Will tugged. Hannibal allowed himself to be pulled back down and arranged so that he lay with his head on Will's chest, just over his heart. After a second of perfect stillness, he put a hand there as well, pressed flat on Will's skin. 

"Go to sleep," Will said. 

"We should clean up." 

"It's too hot to sleep for long. We'll wake up, we'll turn the fan on. Open the rest of the windows. Take a shower." He smoothed a hand over the back of Hannibal's head and down his neck. "You can change the sheets. We'll go back to bed."

"Change the sheets," Hannibal murmured. "And what will you be doing?" 

"Watching."

"You have spent a lot of time watching me since we got here." 

"I always spent a lot of time watching you. I used to be less obvious about it, that's all." 

"What have you learned from all your observation?" Hannibal asked. 

Will leaned down to kiss the back of his neck. "That I really like watching you." 

Hannibal let out a soft breath. "All right."

"All right?"

"All right, I'll change the sheets."


	61. post-fall sub hannibal 2

"Going fishing," Will said. 

Hannibal nodded once. "Shall I pack you something for lunch?"

"Sure." Will bent over his tackle box. "You can come if you want."

Hannibal's silence settled over the room like dust. "Are you certain you want company?" he said at last. 

"Sure. Just be quiet and don't scare the fish." 

They walked down to the pier together, Will with his fishing gear and Hannibal with lunch and a book and sunglasses pushed up on top of his head. Hannibal sat down next to him at the end of the pier. Their feet hung down over the water. Will cast out his line. He wasn't expecting to catch anything, at least not fish, and he was surprised to get a bite almost immediately. 

The reel unspooled with a whine. It was big, whatever it was. Will scrambled to his feet. He could see a froth of foam where the line disappeared into the water and the fish skimmed close to the surface. It leapt up, shining, a blue marlin, maybe ten or twelve feet long, almost the same shade as the sea and sky. 

Hannibal got up to stand beside Will, shading his eyes with one hand. "I thought one fished for those from boats. How will you bring it in? Or get it ashore when you do?"

"I won't, not with this line and this rod." He reached for the knife in his pocket and cut it loose. "You're right, it shouldn't have been this close to shore. You only find them in deep water." 

"Why did it come so close?" Hannibal was staring out at the waves, face blank. 

"Maybe there's a drop-off out there." 

"Are you sorry to let it go?"

Will shook his head. "What would I do with a monster like that?" 

"That is the question, of course," Hannibal said. 

They sat down again. Will checked over his rod for stress fractures. Hannibal poured them each a glass of white wine. Will smiled as he took a sip. "I never drank wine while I fished before." 

"Beer?"

"Mostly whiskey, but beer too, sure." 

"I can bring some next time."

"No, this is good." Will pressed their shoulders together and clinked his glass against Hannibal's. It rang high and pure. Crystal wine glasses. Only Hannibal. "So. Got an answer?"

"An answer to what?" Hannibal said. 

"What I should do with the monster I did catch." 

"Anything you like. I thought I'd made that clear." 

Will looked through his tackle box for another lure and tried to find the right words at the same time. He found the lure first, rolling it across his palm while he thought. "Anything I like is going to end up hurting us both," he said. 

"Does that prospect bother you?" 

"Yeah, it bothers me."

"Then you will have to take care," Hannibal said.

"Of you?" 

Hannibal turned to him with a raw, barren look in his eyes. Will expected it to smooth over with Hannibal's usual calm, but it stayed. 

"I don't know what you want from me," Will said. He couldn't look at Hannibal and he couldn't look away. 

"And I don't know what you want from me." 

"You want me to tell you? Is that it?" Will said. 

"Is that so unreasonable? After everything we have done to each, this seems a far simpler, safer course to steer." Hannibal sounded tired, and he wasn't meeting Will's eyes. 

Will tied his lure in place and cast again, far out into the waves. Farther out still, the marlin broke the surface again, flashing in the sun. "Okay," Will said. "You want me to make the rules, I will. First rule, answer my questions. If I ask you how you feel about something or what you want, you need to tell me."

"And if I don't know the answer?"

"Then say that," Will snapped. He was holding his rod too tightly. He set it down on the edge of the dock with one hand to steady it and took a careful breath. "You don't have to know everything. And if you don't want to talk about it, say that. But don't run me around in circles." 

"I was hardly doing that," Hannibal murmured. "How different this is than anything I imagined." 

"What did you imagine?" Silence. Will nudged him. "Hey. Rule number one?" 

Hannibal turned to him and blinked slowly. "I suppose I thought we would live together in Florence. You and me and Abigail."

"And when that didn't work out, you took Bedelia instead." 

"Were you jealous?"

"Yeah," Will said quickly, before he had too much time to think. "Yeah, I was jealous. I worked so hard to get inside you, and just handed it to her. Everything. Fucking gift wrapped."

"It was a poor gift. I got some entertainment out of giving it, but no satisfaction. She got some satisfaction out of receiving it, but certainly no entertainment. She was afraid where you would not have been. She pulled away when you would have shone." 

"Did you really think it would be like that with us? That I'd, what, watch you stab that professor in the head and applaud? And we'd all finish dinner and help you cut up the body?"

"You worked very hard to make sure that I thought that was a reasonable thing to hope for." 

"What do you hope for now?"

Hannibal looked out at the water again, hands on his knees. "I hope that you will stay."

"Is that all?"

"I hope for peace between us. For respite."

Will nodded. "Okay. That's enough to start with."


	62. post fall sub hannibal 3

Will tied Hannibal to one of their dining room chairs. Not just wrists and ankles: he’d wound rope around Hannibal’s legs and arms and chest and thighs until he was immobile, naked, with his cock straining between his legs. Hannibal had let him do it without protest or even a single question. 

“Part of me feels like I could never take advantage of you,” Will said. “Like that’s actually impossible. You always come out on top.” 

“Our history suggests otherwise.” 

“You said I was victorious. But I never wanted to win.” 

“What was your aim then?” 

Will straddled his thighs, naked as well. He’d stretched and slicked himself, awkward and almost shaking under Hannibal’s fixed attention. He’d turned around and bent himself over the table to give Hannibal a good view. 

“You destroyed me,” Will said. “I wanted to destroy you.”

Hannibal watched him, hair falling across his forehead and sticking there where his skin was damp with sweat. “You did,” he said. 

“That’s not victory. It’s just revenge.”

“It is death and rebirth. One cannot create without destruction, nor can one destroy the old without making something new.” 

“And you’re leaving our new thing up to me?” Will said. 

“Yes.” Hannibal looked up at him through his lashes, almost coy. “Doesn’t that seem wise?” 

Will held Hannibal’s cock by the base and slid down onto it all at once. It took his breath away, quite literally. The sudden stretch and fullness left him gasping. He wound his arms around Hannibal’s neck, and he could feel Hannibal straining to hold him, prevented by the rope. Will’s body flexed and squeezed around his cock. Hannibal tipped his head back. Tendons stood out along the line of his neck. 

“I don’t know if it’s wise or not,” Will said. He still sounded breathless, still adjusting to the length of Hannibal’s cock inside him. “My choices haven’t been that great either.” 

“You only tried to kill me once,” Hannibal said, strained. 

“Are you not counting Florence or are you not counting Matthew Brown?” 

“I’m not counting Florence. Did you—“ Hannibal stopped as Will shifted in his lap and rocked forward. “Did you truly mean to kill me there on the street?” 

Will watched the shift and roll of his shoulders and biceps. The rope dug into them. He touched the edges of it, the reddened skin. “You cut me. I wanted to cut you. I had to. I wasn’t thinking about anything else.” He licked along the edge of the rope and took in the sound Hannibal made low in his throat. “I thought maybe you’d kill me. I didn’t know you’d take me home and dress me up for dinner. Definitely didn’t know I was going to be the main course.” 

“The only course,” Hannibal said, almost slurring the words, leaning forward to catch Will’s mouth with his. “I wouldn’t have diluted the flavor with anything else.” 

“That fucking soup,” Will said against his lips. 

“It was to heighten the flavor,” Hannibal murmured. He pressed a kiss to Will’s lower lip and the dip just beneath it. 

Will braced his hands on Hannibal’s shoulders and rolled his hips forward. “For my last meal, you could’ve, fuck, made it taste better.” 

“Will,” Hannibal said helplessly. He tried to thrust up, but Will had tied him too securely. “Please.” 

“Please what?” 

“Forgive me,” Hannibal said. He kissed Will’s jaw and licked into his mouth. “Forgive me.” 

Will moved on him, watched him strain and struggle, and remembered how carefully Hannibal had touched him that night. Undressed him, bathed him, dried him. The clothes had fit perfectly. Hannibal had sat him at a little antique wooden vanity, and Will had watched his own reflection in the age-spotted mirror as Hannibal combed back his hair. He hadn’t been afraid at all. He could remember the scent of roasted meat. 

“You could’ve fed me first,” he said. “You were making something.” 

“I had meant to,” Hannibal said. “I was cooking for you. I lost my nerve. If I had waited any longer, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.” 

Will leaned forward and nipped his earlobe sharply enough that Hannibal twitched. “Next time, fucking make me dinner first. Promise.” 

“There won’t be a next time,” Hannibal said. 

“Promise me.” 

Hannibal let out a shuddering breath as Will licked behind his ear. “I promise.” 

Will braced his feet on the floor and rocked up, let himself slide back down. He shifted until Hannibal’s cock was stroking inside him at just the right angle. He rode him slowly and then faster, aware of Hannibal’s thighs tensing under him and his now-constant pull against the ropes. 

“You’ll hurt yourself if you keep that up,” Will said. 

Hannibal just stared at him, eyes dark, straining forward for another kiss. Will gave it to him, and Hannibal sucked and licked at his mouth. He tensed as Will slid back down onto him hard. 

“Will—“

“Don’t come. You’ve got more self-control than that.” 

“Not with you.” Hannibal nuzzled along the line of Will’s jaw. He sounded almost drunk. 

“Do your best,” Will told him. He lifted himself up and pushed hard back down, got a hand around his own cock and started stroking. He was closer than he’d thought. Watching Hannibal always got to him, and this was something else. He was staring at Will, flushed and disheveled and bound. And obedient. Whatever Will wanted, Hannibal wanted to give him. 

That thought and few hard strokes were enough to put Will over the edge. He came across Hannibal’s stomach and slumped against him, breathing hard, arms around his neck. His thighs ached. He had to be careful getting up. His knees felt unsteady. 

He cleaned up and stood watching Hannibal, who was watching him like nothing else existed. They might have been floating alone in the void, just the two of them, wrapped up in vacuum and lit by distant stars. “Do you want to come?” Will said. 

“Do you want me to?” 

Will decided that he did. He poured lube over Hannibal’s cock and sat in his lap to stroke him. Hannibal was so tense he was nearly shaking. “Any time you want,” Will said. 

Hannibal came on the next stroke with a rough, low noise that ground out between clenched teeth. White streaked across his belly and thighs, and the chair jumped as his hips jerked up, despite the ropes and Will’s weight on him. Will kept stroking him through it and leaned close to kiss him and brush his hair back from his eyes. 

Unbinding him, he had to stop to kiss the rope marks. He didn’t ask if they hurt. He was pretty sure they did. “They look good on you,” he said. 

Hannibal blinked slowly at him. “Thank you.” It sounded sincere. 

Will made sure he had feeling in all his limbs, made him move his arms and walk around the room and got him water and then he took him to bed. They lay close, face to face. Will could see the subtle variations of color in his irises, dark brown and amber and gold. He had two gray eyelashes. Will kissed the scar on his cheek. 

Hannibal closed his eyes and leaned into it. “Am I forgiven then?” 

“For that. Yes.”

“Will I atone for everything I’ve done?” Hannibal asked. 

“We both will.”


	63. post fall sub hannibal 4

Will bought it at a pet shop on impulse. He’d stopped to look at the mournful puppies in the window, and a sudden rain had driven him inside. The display of collars was in the back where he had drifted, wanting to be out of sight. 

He’d come home with this one: soft leather the color of dark blood, thick, with a brass buckle and a place to attach the matching leash. Which he had also bought. The leash was in a bag under his bed. The collar was sitting on the table where Hannibal would see it when he came in from the garden. 

Will went into the kitchen and started chopping onions. If he didn’t do something, he was going drive back to town and return it. And he didn’t want to. Not really. 

“It’s early for dinner,” Hannibal said. 

Will didn’t jump and he didn’t turn. He concentrated on keeping the dice of his onion even. “They’ll keep a couple hours. You’ll find something to do with them.” 

“Very likely. And what shall I find to do with this?” 

Will heard the scrape of the metal buckle against the table and the clink as Hannibal picked it up. His grip on the knife tightened. “What do you want to do with it?” 

Hannibal came to stand next to him. He leaned back against the counter and stretched the collar between his hands. “Is it for me?”

“I didn’t secretly buy a dog.”

“You don’t buy strays. You find them. Or they find you.” 

Will glanced at him. Hannibal was rubbing one thumb across the leather, again and again. “It’s for you,” Will said. “If you want it. If you don’t, that’s fine.” 

“Will you put it on me?”

“Let me wash my hands first. They smell like onion.” 

Will washed his hands. Hannibal turned his back to him. Will laid the collar in place around his throat. He buckled it and tested it with a finger to make sure it wasn’t too tight. He had to swallow a couple of times before he trusted his voice. The back of Hannibal’s neck, bare and bent for him, made his breath come short. 

“How is it?” he said. 

Hannibal twisted his neck from side to side. He touched the leather and let his hand fall away again. “There’s no tag,” he said. 

“Don’t need one. You’re not going to run away, are you?” 

“And if I get lost?” 

“I’ll find you,” Will said.


	64. soul mate tattoos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every person on earth is born with a tattoo on each arm. One matches your soulmate, and one matches your worst enemy. However, most people have no clue which is which. Will does, because they are both the same.
> 
> From this prompt: http://emungere.tumblr.com/post/144613435967/hannibalartblog-writing-prompt-s-every

When he was a kid, Will thought it must be a mistake. Or there was some subtle difference between the two soul marks that he couldn’t see, no matter how long he stared at them. He’d finally asked his father: “How can someone be my soulmate and my enemy? That’s impossible.” 

His father had just looked sad and tugged Will’s sleeves down. “It happens sometimes.” 

“But how? You can’t love someone and hate them. Those are opposite things.” 

“You don’t want me to say you’ll understand when you’re older, do you?”

“No!” Will said. “I hate that.” 

His father smiled a little. “I know you do. So go start your homework and try to forget about it, okay? Odds are, you won’t ever meet this person anyway, not unless you sign up with a matching service. And if you want some advice there: don’t.” 

\\*

Will didn’t. He grew up wearing long sleeves in the heat so he didn’t have to answer questions about his identical soul marks. He grew up wondering. In high school, he fell in love for the first time. After the break up, he thought he understood a little better how you could love someone and hate them too, but he still didn’t understand how you could love your worst enemy. 

\\*

At his first crime scene, fresh out of training, he walked backward through the mess of blood and brain matter on the floor and saw the hand that had pulled the trigger. He looked down, and it was his own hand, his own soul mark, but not his own, not the familiar branching antlers but instead a black fish: the same fish on the victim’s arm. 

“Well, of course his enemy’s his killer,” Will’s sergeant said. “Doesn’t need much in the way of brains to work that out. Hardly unusual.” 

Will hadn’t said it out loud until a week later when the investigation foundered, but he’d been sure from the first. The killer wasn’t the man’s enemy. It was his soulmate. 

When they broke the case, it hit the national news. Someone shoved a microphone in Will’s face and asked him how anyone could kill the other half of their soul. His sergeant had taken in Will’s blank stare and pale face and answered the question herself, but Will didn’t stop thinking about it. Not for years afterward. 

\\*

He wondered when he met Hannibal. Well, not when he met him. When he looked at him across a blood-spattered kitchen as Hannibal clamped a strong hand over the wound in Abigail’s neck. 

He wondered when Hannibal called Hobbs his victim. He wondered when he admitted that he’d liked killing Hobbs and Hannibal’s expression didn’t change. It was calm acceptance. It was a rock in the sea. It was very faintly approving. 

He wondered if Hannibal ever wondered about him. He wondered if Hannibal had two identical sets of antlers on his forearms. 

\\*

“He’s removing his kidney. Poorly.” 

Will didn’t hear anything after that because Hannibal was taking off his jacket, rolling up his sleeve, baring the soul mark on his forearm. Will only had to look once to be sure. He knew it as well as he knew his own. 

And he knew also a rush things half-remembered and carefully avoided: Hannibal had been a surgeon, had helped Abigail hide Nick Boyle’s body, had looked at Will with kindness and approval as he spoke about the thrill of killing, had hosted dinner parties during the Ripper’s most active periods, was planning another even now. 

Hannibal had come to check on him when he’d missed his appointment. Hannibal smiled at him in a way that he smiled at no one else. 

Will said nothing. 

\\* 

He took wine to Hannibal’s house and watched him cook, both sleeves rolled up now, both marks bared. Hannibal saw his look and held out his arms for examination. “They are the same,” he said. “It’s unusual, but not unheard of. I applied to a matching agency once out of curiosity, but my enemy and my other half prefers ignorance. No match on record.” 

“Do you remember the soulmate murder in Louisiana about ten years ago?” Will said. 

“The fish. Yes, I remember.” Hannibal tilted his head and paused in his whisking. “It was your case?” 

“Yeah. Some reporter asked me how anyone could kill the other half of their soul. I didn’t know the answer.”

“You sound as if you do now.” 

Will gave him a quick smile. “Older and wiser. Have a good night, Dr. Lecter.” 

\\*

Hannibal sent him after Budge, and Will knew why. Hannibal suspected. This was a test. Of what, Will wasn’t quite sure and maybe Hannibal wasn’t either. Of Will’s ability, of Hannibal’s attachment, of the nature of their bond. 

Will found the two policemen dead on the floor. His instinct was to follow Budge into the basement, but he didn’t. He knew where Budge was going.

Will arrived at Hannibal’s office just in time to see him snap Franklyn’s neck. They looked at each other with Budge between them. Will drew his gun. 

“Which one of us will you shoot?” Hannibal asked. 

“The survivor,” Will said. “You sent me against him. Now it’s him against you. That’s fair, isn’t it? Even Steven.” He stepped back against the wall and closed the door. 

The fight was beautiful. Hannibal was beautiful. Will wanted him to win. Needed him to win. Almost shot Budge when he stabbed Hannibal in the thigh. Almost. Hannibal broke Budge’s arm with a feral sneer. He crushed his head with delicacy and a crash of antlers. 

The two survivors looked at each other. Will put his gun away. 

“And now?” Hannibal said. 

Will dropped his jacket on the floor and rolled up his sleeves. “You knew.” 

“I guessed. I hoped.” Hannibal came to him. He put his hands over the marks on Will’s skin. His palms were so hot. Burning. 

“Show me,” Will said. “I need to see.” 

Hannibal rolled up his own sleeves and displayed his marks. He held his arms up, palms forward, as soul-bonded couples did during the joining ceremony. Will mirrored the position. They pressed their marks together laced their fingers and held on. Will gripped so hard that he could feel blood under his nails. 

“You were going to shoot the survivor,” Hannibal said. 

“There are no survivors here.” 

\\*

MURDER HUSBANDS ELOPE, LEAVE TWO DEAD  
Tattlecrime exclusive on the soulmates from hell!

\\*

Years later, Hannibal took his scalpel and excised the mark on his left arm and the mark on Will’s right. He went deep so they wouldn’t grow back. He crisped them both in a frying pan and served them with a red wine sauce. It wasn’t as hard to stomach as Will had feared it might be.


	65. dimmond & nigel

Nigel took the job in Florence out of desperation. He’d been laid up for months recovering from the gunshot wounds and the surgery that had followed. Laid up bad. No smokes, no booze, pissing in a bottle. No music. Lucky to be alive. That’s what he’d been told. 

A friend had gotten him out of the country and away from the police, but all he had to his name was the clothes he stood up in, a fake passport, and the name of a friend of a friend of a friend who had a job for him. He met the third degree friend and then he had a target and a gun too. 

For the second time in Nigel’s life, he stood in a restaurant during the dinner rush with a gun down the back of his pants. No security cameras in this place. He’d checked. He was smarter now than he’d been the first time. Hungrier too. The place smelled like garlic and maybe lemons and roasting meat. His mouth was watering. He didn’t care about shooting this dickbag — the target was a local businessman, and Nigel had found out only enough about him to know that he didn’t have some heavy squad who’d come gunning for him — but he didn’t want to do it. 

They’d pulled three bullets out of his gut and thigh. He wasn’t all the way healed. It hurt. He wanted to sit down and eat a plate of fucking pasta, not shoot this man in his shiny, balding head. But the one couldn’t be done without the other. He had no money.

He’d been high the first time too, spent the hours before the job speedballing with a couple of girls he knew. The third degree friend could probably get him all the drugs he wanted. 

No. If he was doing this again, he’d do it stone cold and careful. 

“Are you waiting for a table, sir?” the waiter said. 

“No. That’s my party over there.” Nigel crossed to the room, put the muzzle to the back of the target’s big bald sweaty fucking head, and pulled the trigger three times. 

The room dissolved like cooking heroin in a spoon, bubbling chaos and a bad smell. Nigel dumped the print-free untraceable gun on the target’s body. It was easy to blend in with the crowd. Almost no one had seen it happen. Those who had were shocked too fucking stupid to process what they’d seen. 

Nigel had blood on his hands. Splashback. He headed for the men’s room, which also had a window he could use as an exit. This was the advantage of not flying blind on cocaine and heroin. It made planning ahead a fuck of a lot easier. 

There was a guy at the sinks staring in the mirror. He was tall, dark hair, stupid purple scarf like he thought he was an artist. The man looked at Nigel. People were still screaming outside. There was no way this guy hadn’t heard the gunshot. He looked at Nigel’s hands. 

Nigel walked to the sinks and turned on the water. “What the fuck are you looking at?” 

“Did you just murder someone and come in here to clean up?” 

Nigel didn’t bother lying most of the time, but this was the time for it if there ever was one. He tried. It stuck in his throat. 

The man tipped his head to the side and leaned one hip against the sink. “Have you killed a lot of people? You seem very calm about it.” 

“I’m not,” Nigel said. He wasn’t. His heart was beating too fast. He’d hurt a lot of people, but he hadn’t killed that many, not on purpose. Not sober. 

“There’s blood on your shirt,” the man said. 

Nigel looked down. There was. Maybe some brains too. He dried his hands and zipped up his jacket to cover it. He went to the window and heaved it open. The man followed him. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Nigel said. 

“Well, either I go out the window or I’ll have to ask for your gun so I can shoot my date because he is honestly the dullest man in the entire western hemisphere. Oh. Unless you’ve done it for me?” 

“Was he a fat bald guy?” 

“No.” 

“Still alive then.” 

“My name is Anthony Dimmond,” the man said. “Would you like to get a drink?” 

“I’m not fucking gay,” Nigel said. 

“I’m not offering to have sex with you. Yet.” Anthony swung one leg over the windowsill and slid out and down into the alley. 

Nigel followed him and closed the window behind them. People had called him crazy plenty of times, but he’d never willingly strolled into a dark alley with a murderer. At least not one he didn’t know. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he called. 

Anthony looked back from the mouth of the alley and smiled at him. It was a pretty nice smile. “I don’t like being bored, and you don’t seem boring. That’s all. Come on. I can hear the police.” 

Nigel could hear them too, sirens winding down as they pulled up at the front of the restaurant. He caught up to Anthony. They walked down the street toward a yellow rising moon.


	66. feral teen will

When Hannibal bought the house on the cliff, he never intended to live there. He had purchased it through intermediaries. His name appeared nowhere on the deed. He'd had it stocked and would have it maintained by people had had never spoken to.

He visited the house one weekend in September to check on the arrangements. The heat of the summer lingered, crisper on the high northern cliff by the ocean, but still enough to keep the leaves green. Hannibal walked through the house and was content. All was as it should be. It was comfortable enough, decent beds, a good kitchen, wine cellar stocked with acceptable vintages. 

He walked along the cliff path before starting dinner. That was when he saw the boy for the first time. It was only a flash of bare skin and eyes in the creeping dusk. Hannibal might have doubted his senses, but the scent lingered: unwashed human, overlaid with earth and pine and fear. 

Hannibal went back into the house and left the doors to the patio standing open while he cooked dinner. He thought he saw movement in the shadows, but no more than that. 

The next morning, he was up at dawn. He took his coffee out to the edge of the cliff. Far below, he saw a slim, pale body plunge into the waves. 

That was the last he saw of the boy that weekend, but he came back the next. And the next. If asked, he could not have said why, but of course no one asked. He told no one. He was merely unavailable on weekends from September into November and, for the most part, unmissed. 

He left the doors open. Sometimes he left food on the patio. It was always gone in the morning, but that might have been animals. 

*

It wasn't until the snow started that he saw the boy again. Hannibal kept the doors open and built up the fire. At first, he thought he was seeing flames in the glass, elongated and pale from some trick of reflection, but then the shape solidified. The boy took a single step inside and crouched on the floor. 

He wore only a pair of ragged shorts. He was streaked with dirt, hair matted and filthy, nails grown long and broken off. He was thin enough that Hannibal could see his ribs and spine. His eyes were dull, and he was shivering. Hannibal had thought him younger, but could see now that he was at least an adolescent, somewhere between fifteen and seventeen perhaps, under all that dirt. 

Hannibal went into the kitchen and returned with leftovers: cold meat, bread, cheese, water. He set it down halfway between the fire and door. After only seconds, he heard the boy eating, and it was a sound out of his own past: the starving child making himself ill. He didn't know if the boy would listen or even if he could understand speech, but: "You must slow down. Your body is not used to so much." 

He did slow down. When Hannibal pushed a blanket toward him, he wrapped up in it, huddled still by the cold draft from the open door. 

"I am going to bed," Hannibal said. "I would advise you to close the door and keep us both warm." 

He went to sleep, not without some difficulty. 

*

In the morning, he found the boy curled up by the remains of the fire, door closed, bread clutched in his hand. 

Hannibal nodded to himself. It was far better progress than he had expected and suggested more contact with humanity than he had originally posited. He went into the kitchen and cooked breakfast: hot chocolate, oatmeal, scrambled eggs. He left them for the boy and retreated to the far side of the room. 

"Slowly," Hannibal told him when he woke. 

The boy looked at him with clear, ice-blue eyes that shone out of his filthy face like a wolf's. 

"I can see you in there," Hannibal said. 

The boy made a lunge toward the door, but stopped, clutching his oatmeal spoon, holding tight to the blanket, looking between Hannibal and the fire.

"I won't make you stay. I won't tell anyone you are here. You are safe." 

The boy made a noise at that, the first Hannibal had heard from him. It was a high sort of bark that might have been intended as a laugh. If laughter was something he remembered. 

*

On Sunday, Hannibal left as usual. He returned the next Friday to chaos. 

The refrigerator stood open, all its contents either consumed or strewn about the kitchen. The cupboards had been opened, a few plates broken, a box of pasta thrown on the floor. More worryingly: the wine, the broken glass. 

Hannibal found the boy in front of the fire with another bottle of wine, neck broken off, now mostly empty. The boy looked at him with glassy eyes, lolling in a nest of pillows. He had blood on his lip, sliced open on the bottle neck. 

"I imagine everything you've come in contact with has fleas now," Hannibal said. 

The boy blinked slowly at him. He didn't move when Hannibal approached. 

"How much have you had to drink?" 

The boy clutched the bottle to his chest, but was too uncoordinated to stop Hannibal from taking it, too drunk to do more than slap uselessly at his hands. Hannibal eyed him. Time to get him cleaned up. This seemed like the best opportunity he was likely to have. 

To his surprise, the boy did not resist as Hannibal helped him stand and walk to the bathroom. When Hannibal had him seated on the edge of the tub, the boy reached out to stroke the cashmere sleeve of his sweater. Hannibal kept his arm still and let him do it, adjusting the taps with his other hand. 

It took three changes of water to get him clean, but he was biddable enough through all of it. He did splash Hannibal, at first by accident and later on purpose. He didn't smile, but something in his unfocused eyes suggested humor. 

"What a mess you are," Hannibal told him softly. The boy looked at him with his head tilted and reached out a wet hand to touch Hannibal's sweater again. His palms were rough with calluses and no amount of scrubbing could get all the ingrained dirt out. 

Hannibal let the water drain for the last time and wrapped him up in two towels. He'd done his best to get his hair clean at the scalp, but the majority of it would have to come off. Later, he decided. After lunch. And a mild sedative. 

*

The next morning, Hannibal woke with the boy crouched at the foot of his bed. He wore Hannibal's sweater, a pair of boxers, and nothing else. He was nearly bald from the haircut, and his ears stuck out. He watched Hannibal with his wolf eyes as he crawled up the bed, and Hannibal found himself holding his breath. 

He stretched out a hand. The boy snapped at it and then lunged for him with a snarl. Hannibal rolled him onto his back and held him there. He put a hand on his throat. The boy went limp under him, head tipped back, neck bared in submission, something like relief in his eyes. 

"Stay," Hannibal told him. "Be still. Rest." 

They lay side by side on the bed as the dawn crept through the curtains. The boy fell asleep, curled into a ball, sleeves pulled down over his rough hands. Hannibal lay awake and watched him. He had worked for months to get to this point, and now he had no idea what might come next. The thought pleased him enormously.


	67. The Safety of the Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal took Will by the shoulders and tugged him gently back from the rope he was tying off. “Go below and warm up,” he said. “I can take over. The weather isn’t that bad. I’ll be fine on my own.”

Hannibal took Will by the shoulders and tugged him gently back from the rope he was tying off. “Go below and warm up,” he said. “I can take over. The weather isn’t that bad. I’ll be fine on my own.” 

He would be. In two weeks, he gotten a feel for the wind that had taken Will two years. Granted, Will had started when he was only seven but, even so, he felt like he should be annoyed that Hannibal was so good at this. He wasn’t annoyed. Sort of the opposite. 

Will paused at the cabin door and looked back. Hannibal stood tall and straight, facing into the wind. He wore a thick sweater that covered his neck and a yellow anorak. He hadn’t shaved for two days. His stubble was coming in gray in places. He glanced over his shoulder. “Will. Go,” he said. 

“Yeah, I’m going.” 

Will went below. He’d been on deck for the past five hours, and he was cold through, damp and sticky with salt. He put water on for coffee while he changed into dry clothes. He could feel the push of the wind, the break of the waves, the careful course Hannibal was steering. 

When he was a kid, he’d made coffee for his dad in countless galleys just like this, sometimes docked, sometimes out for a test run to see if his repairs held. He’d never felt safer than when he was out on the water with his father at the helm. 

When he’d poured the coffee, he hesitated for a second and then pulled on his rain jacket again. He took a mug up on deck. “Hey. Coffee. Want some?” 

Hannibal turned. He took the mug and nodded his thanks. There was warmth in his eyes as he ordered Will below once again. "Go. Stay dry," he said. "You’ve done enough." 

Will went. He poured his own coffee, climbed into the bunk, and pulled his knees up to his chest, a blanket around him. He listened to the waves and the rain and the creak of the boat. 

*

When he woke, it was to the sense of Hannibal’s nearness. He was bending over Will and taking the mug from his hands. It was still a quarter full, cold, and balanced on one kneecap. 

Will rubbed at his eyes and tried to swallow down the taste of stale coffee and sleep. "I can take another shift," he said. 

"We are anchored. The wind has dropped, and the sun is out." He paused. "There are dolphins if you’d like to see." 

Will just blinked a couple of times, half trying to process the idea of Hannibal Lecter wanting to show him dolphins and half against the overlaid memory of his father doing the exact same thing. They’d been out fishing on his dad’s friend’s boat, a sagging mess of a vessel caked with barnacles and always in need of pumping. Will had been making coffee when his father had called him up. The smooth gray bodies had been just visible to the east, dipping in and out of the water at the edge of the world. 

Silent, he followed Hannibal up on deck. They stood side by side at the stern. Will could see the sand bar below them through water like gray glass. A veil of rain hung to the north. Out behind them, to the east, four or five fins carved across the surface. One leapt, another followed, and, for a few seconds, the air was full of them, as if they might take to the sky and fly away. They slipped under the waves again, followed by a shower of crystal spray. 

Hannibal took off his coat and wrapped it around Will’s shoulders. He left his arm there, keeping Will close. 

"When I got out — after you took Abel, and they let me out, Alana asked me something," Will said. "She asked me if you were safe." 

"From you or for her?" 

Will’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t want to smile. "That’s what I said." 

"I assume you considered the answer to be no in either case." 

"I did," Will said. 

"And it appears you were right. I was not safe from you with an ocean between us. Even less so locked away in prison." 

"Are you safe for me?" Will asked. "You’re acting like you are." He gestured at the coat around his shoulders, the cabin where he’d been rocked to sleep with someone else at the helm. "But so’s the ocean right now."

Hannibal was silent, leaning into Will as they both swayed with the motion of the boat and the changeable waves. "The ocean does not love," Hannibal said finally. "Its heart is reserved for storms and devastation, and it has no reason to temper its violence." 

Will looked at the faint curve of his mouth, up over the slant of his cheekbone, and finally into his eyes. "I keep thinking about my dad."

Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "That’s not an association I would have expected." 

"Me neither. He was a good man."

"Unlike me."

"Unlike either of us," Will said. "It’s being on the water, I think. And feeling safe. Whether that feeling is justified or not." 

Hannibal closed his eyes briefly and breathed in. They stood so close that Will could feel the expansion of his chest. "I can’t promise to be safe for you, Will. I can only say that, unlike the ocean, I do have a reason to temper my storms." 

Will leaned his head against Hannibal’s chest as he had at the top of the cliff and felt the stutter of Hannibal’s breath. He’d felt it then too. “That’s good enough for now,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [on tumblr](http://emungere.tumblr.com/post/148899310147/the-safety-of-the-ocean)


	68. feral teen will 2

After the incident with the wine, Hannibal took a week off of work to stay at the cliff house with the boy. He brought clothes with him: soft things, an array of cashmere sweaters in blues and grays, loose knit pants, warm socks and shearling boots. Not the height of fashion, but the boy's first choice was to wear Hannibal's sweaters and nothing else, so this seemed like a reasonable compromise. 

When Hannibal arrived Monday evening, he found him sans boxers, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, lying on his stomach in front of the fire with his buttocks and thighs rosy from the heat. He had a small nest of blankets around him and a pillowcase that proved to be full of apples, bread, cheese, and chocolate. He curled around it as Hannibal approached. 

"You can keep it," Hannibal said. "You may have as much as you like. If we run out, I will get more. Do you understand?" 

The boy brought his lips together in the shape of the word: more. No sound emerged. He tried again, and his face twisted in a scowl at his failure. 

"It is not so easy to relearn speech," Hannibal said. "It took me more than a year." He ignored the startled look that got him and pointed to the melting chocolate in the boy's hand, which would soon no doubt be all over his sweater. "Chocolate. More?" 

The boy shaped the words after him. He stuffed half the bar in his mouth at once. 

Hannibal got him another from the shopping bags he'd brought in with him. The boy leapt free of his nest and climbed on top of the table, digging through them. He seemed disappointed at first that most of them were clothes and then he found the half dozen cashmere sweaters. He rubbed his face into them and looked at Hannibal sidelong. 

"Yes. They're for you."

The boy added those to his fireplace nest as well. 

*

In the morning, Hannibal set out into the snow for a walk. He had a silent, barefoot shadow. The boy had put on pants, but the concept of shoes seemed entirely foreign to him. He was using the boots to store chocolate bars. 

Hannibal stopped at the edge of a clearing. Tall, dark pines stood like charcoal outlines against the clean expanse of snow. The boy crept up beside him and stood on a snow-free rock, toes curled up against the cold. Hannibal had seen the thick calluses on his feet, but, even so, he didn't think they should stay out long. 

"Nature is most peaceful when everything is dead or asleep," he said. "The forest where I grew up was thicker than this, but it is the same silence. How much do you remember of your life before this, I wonder." 

He looked out ahead of them into the snowy distance. Gradually, he became aware of a soft sound and something falling into the snow. Something yellow that steamed briefly on contact. Hannibal looked over and watched the boy finish urinating. When he had done, there were letters in the snow: Will. 

"I see you remember something, at least," Hannibal said. "It's good to meet you, Will. My name is Hannibal. You'll forgive me if I don't echo the form of your introduction." 

Will pulled his pants back up around his waist. He leapt off the rock and ran back the way they'd come, but he stopped before he vanished out of sight. He looked over his shoulder, waiting for Hannibal to catch up.


	69. feral teen will 3

Hannibal stood at the stove, heating maple syrup in a saucepan. “Pants,” he told Will. 

Will made a face at him. He had at least put on the boxer briefs Hannibal had bought for him, but seemed to feel that they were sufficient for all occasions. 

“We’re going outside,” Hannibal said. “You’ll be cold.” 

Will just looked at him, unconvinced, it seemed, that outside had anything to offer that would be worth the price of having to put on pants. 

“I promise you’ll like this. Go on.” 

Will sidled off, maybe to put on pants, maybe to curl up in front of the fire. Hannibal thought the odds were about equal, but, when he had heated the syrup to the soft ball stage and carried it out to the living room, he found Will waiting for him by the door. 

Together, they went out onto the patio and into the freshly fallen snow, like silver in the moonlight. Hannibal poured the syrup over it and showed Will how it hardened into candy. He let Will pour the rest himself, which he did in thin squiggles and lines and one wobbly W. 

They gathered up the candy and ate it in front of the fire. Hannibal sat in his leather armchair. Will started off in the nest of blankets he had accumulated but, after a few minutes, crawled closer, up over the arm of the chair, and knelt straddling Hannibal’s legs. 

He looked hard into Hannibal’s eyes for a long time, and Hannibal let him look. He shaped some word silently with his lips and then put air behind it. It came out as a rough, cracked noise, loud and sudden in the still room. Will ducked his head and put both hands over his mouth. 

Hannibal brushed a palm over his cropped hair. “It’s all right. Practice when you’re alone if it’s easier. It will come back.” 

Will looked up at him and shaped another word, clearly and carefully: _Promise?_

“I promise,” Hannibal said. 

Will leaned against his chest, curled awkwardly in his lap like a young deer come to shelter from the storm.


	70. teen hannibal & feral teen will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Got a prompt for these two meeting... They're both thirteen here, and it's set shortly after Hannibal's family was murdered. I do not know what Will's doing in Lithuania.

They took Hannibal out of the orphanage dormitory after the first week. He screamed at night and disturbed the other children. Now he slept in a closet. Even with the bed wedged into it, he had more space to himself than he’d had in the dorm, so he counted it as a step up. He was always tired and so he assumed that he still screamed in the night, still woke from nightmares. He never remembered them. 

The orphanage sat at the edge of town and backed onto wild land. Most mornings, Hannibal took what he could from the dining hall and slipped out into the forest. Sometimes he got caught leaving and they dragged him back to the endless round of classes and chores and clumsy attempts at therapy. He hadn’t spoken a word since he’d arrived. The lack of speech didn’t bother him as much as it seemed to bother everyone else. 

In the woods, he could be silent in peace. This morning, he walked and noted how the dew sat on the long pine needles. He was eating a piece of bread and jam. Halfway to his mouth, it vanished with a rush of air and the blur of something fast in his peripheral vision. 

Hannibal turned and shot after it, ducking under a branch and scrambling over a rock. His only clear thought was that it was too big to be a crow and deer were too timid to steal from humans. A wolf would sooner eat him.

The run was good. It stretched his muscles and made his lungs ache. He’d been still for too long. Maybe it was the still, colorless life of the orphanage that made him scream in the night. Everything about this leaf-mould-and-pine scented chase was fresh and cool and alive. 

He could hear a stream ahead of him and the splash of his prey's feet in water. As he rounded a tree, he saw a boy his own age scrambling up the bank on the far side. One of his fellow inmates that stolen his breakfast. The thought made him angry enough to launch himself out over the water and clear it in one bound. He closed his hand on the thief’s ankle. 

The boy fell to the ground, and Hannibal fell in the water. He caught his chin on a rock but scrambled up to sit on the boy and hold him down. And then he stopped. No gray orphanage uniform. Twigs in his long wild hair, scratches on his face and hands. The boy was cradling Hannibal’s bread and jam to his chest and still struggling to get away. He was smaller than Hannibal and much skinnier. 

Hannibal pinned him with one hand on his chest and reached into his pocket. He offered the boy his other piece of bread and an apple. The boy snatched them both. Hannibal mimed eating. 

There was a long pause. The boy’s eyes flicked between him and the food, looking for the trap. Finally, he shoved the bread in his mouth, the whole piece at once, and chewed with his cheeks bulging. He consumed both bread and apple so quickly that Hannibal worried he might choke. 

When he had finished, he looked up at Hannibal. He’d stopped trying to get away, but he tracked Hannibal's every movement. His hand twitched toward a nearby stone that might serve as a weapon, but he didn't grab it. 

Hannibal pulled some of the larger twigs from his hair and smoothed it back. The boy pushed at his chest, and Hannibal moved so that he could sit up. They looked at each other in silence. The boy pushed at him again, gently. Hannibal moved off of him. He knelt on the thick carpet of pine needles. 

The boy stood. He took one step back from Hannibal and then another. He raised one hand. Hannibal echoed the gesture. The boy turned and ran off into the woods. 

For the first time since the bad winter, Hannibal wished he could remember how to speak. He wanted to call after him.


	71. single dad will

Hannibal rang Will's doorbell just after nine o'clock at night. He heard muffled barking from inside, Will's voice calling out indistinctly, and then the door was opened by a small boy. He had Will's dark curls and blue eyes and was wearing what appeared to be Will's T-shirt, in that it was long enough to hang past his knees. 

"Who are you?" the boy said. 

"I'm Will's friend. My name is Hannibal. And who are you?" 

"I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers," the boy said. He turned around and wandered off, leaving Hannibal standing in the open doorway. 

"Hart, I told you not to--" Will came into the room and stopped as he saw Hannibal. "Our appointment. I forgot." 

"I see you've had other things to occupy your mind." 

"Come in. I mean, do you want to come in? We just got back from the airport, and everything's--" Will looked around the room. A half unpacked suitcase of children's clothes sat on the bed, along with a balding teddy bear. Will's own suitcase lay on the floor and had a dog sitting in it on top of his clothes. For a moment, he looked as if he might do something about that and then he sank into his chair. "It's a mess," he said. 

Hannibal came in and closed the door. "Have you eaten?"

"No." 

"Suppose I cook something, and you can tell me what's happened?" 

Will looked up at him with such raw gratitude that it was nearly arousing. "Thanks. That would be great." 

Hannibal examined Will's cupboards while Will talked. He spoke of his father's abrupt death from an aneurysm, of a half brother he hadn't known existed, of the authorities' failed attempts to locate Hartley Graham's mother or any of her family. 

"Right now, I'm all he's got," Will said. He looked over to the boy, who sat in front of the fireplace, laughing as the dogs snuffled at his hands. 

"How old is he?" Hannibal asked. 

"Three? I think they said three. I've got his birth certificate somewhere. I don't even know when his birthday is." 

Hannibal pressed a mug of coffee into his hand and got that same nakedly grateful look. He laid a hand on Will's shoulder. "I usually avoid handing out direct advice, but in this case my suggestion is that you think about the situation tomorrow, after you've eaten and slept." 

Will's smile was slightly pained, but he nodded. "Yeah, you're right." 

"And dinner is served. Or will be by the time you've both washed your hands." 

Will managed a slightly more successful smile at that and took Hart off to the bathroom. 

Hannibal had dinner on the table by the time they returned. "Macaroni and cheese," he said. There was no way to dress it up. He'd been lucky to manage that much with what Will had. 

"Mac and cheese is yellow," Hart said. "This is white." 

"It was made with Swiss cheese."

Hart poked at it with his fork. "Ew, slimy onions!" 

"Hart," Will said sharply. "We don't talk that way about food other people made for us. Tell Dr. Lecter thank you." 

"'ankyou," Hart muttered, feet pulled up onto the chair and shoulders hunched. In his sullen defiance, he looked quite astonishingly like Will. "But I don't want it!"

*

Later, when the boy had been put to bed in a nest of blankets in Will's spare room, Hannibal poured whiskey for both of them. 

"My dad must've softened up some," Will said. "I can't imagine complaining about what he put on the table." 

"Will you keep him?" 

"If they can't find his mom. Yeah. There isn't anyone else." 

Hannibal sipped his whiskey and considered his plans. This changed things, but perhaps not significantly. Someone would have to take care of the boy once Will was in custody, and the idea appealed to him more than he would have thought possible. "You will let me know, I hope, if you need help. I feel quite attached to him already." 

"Careful. You don't want to start picking up strays. You'll end up like me." 

"I can imagine worse fates," Hannibal said.


	72. single dad will 2

“Of course I’ll take the dogs too,” Hannibal said. “I know how attached he is to them.” 

He held Hartley in his arms, rocking him as they waited for Jack. Will looked sick. He had the blanket Hannibal had given him clutched close around him. Abigail’s ear was sitting in his kitchen sink, and the scent of vomit penetrated into the hall. 

“You should get dressed,” Hannibal told him gently. 

Will nodded and started to shuffle away. Hartley reached for him and caught his sleeve. “I’m sorry,” Will said. He put a hand over his eyes. His voice was thick. “I’m sorry, Hart. Be good for Hannibal.” 

\\*

Hartley was good, for a three year old. He was better than the dogs, in any case. Hannibal ceded the back garden to them. He would repair the inevitable damage in the spring. All the downstairs floors would need to be refinished too, but it was a relatively small price to pay. 

Hartley fascinated him: the ways in which he was like Will, the glimmers of empathy, his gentle touch with the dogs, unusual at such a young age. Even his stubbornness became charming when Hannibal imagined Will at three years old refusing to go to bed. 

Hartley liked to help Hannibal in the kitchen and was more inclined to eat dishes he’d had a hand in. Today for lunch, they’d had coconut rice and a stir-fry of chicken and vegetables (no broccoli) mildly flavored with ginger and garlic. It wasn’t the pinnacle of fine dining, but they had both enjoyed it. 

“Now the park?” Hartley said. “We can take the dogs? You said.” 

“I did and we can. Will you collect them and put on your snow boots, please?” 

Hartley ran off, shouting for the dogs. Hannibal heard the distant sound of skittering nails on hardwood, the thump of Hartley sitting down hard on the floor, and his laughter as the dogs surrounded him and licked his face. 

Hannibal paused in drying the last of the lunch dishes. He thought of Will, whom Hannibal had seen do nearly the same thing, and with as much joy, even as an adult. He thought of Will as a child, with no pets and no home and no boots. Hartley’s had small ducks on them. He had picked them out himself. 

“Hannibal I’m ready!” Hartley’s words ran together at top volume. The dogs barked with excitement. Hannibal got his coat. 

\\*

At the dog park, Hannibal sat on a bench and watched the boy and the dogs run. Hartley wore himself out quickly and came to sit at Hannibal’s side. He sucked his thumb, but only intermittently, as if someone had tried to break him of the habit and he expected a scolding. Hannibal wondered whether it had been Will or his father. 

“Dead means Daddy’s never coming back,” Hartley said. “He can’t. That’s what Will said.”

“Yes. That’s right.” 

“Is Will coming back?” 

“Yes,” Hannibal said. 

“When?” 

“I don’t know. Soon I hope.” Hannibal paused. One of the dogs brought Hartley a stick to throw. “I miss him.”

Hartley leaned against his side. “Me too. Are we going to all live together when he gets back?” 

Hannibal put an arm around him. He looked up at the sky. Snow was starting to fall. He thought of Abigail at the cliff house. He could take Hartley up to meet her this weekend. Abigail would like the dogs too. Will would be the only missing piece, a piece Hannibal felt far more keenly than he had expected to. “Yes. All of us together. Very soon.”


	73. will finds out and hannibal kidnaps him

Will was sweating. Fever had been stalking him through his dreams on the long drive to Minnesota and had sunk its teeth in now. The gun felt good in his hands, so solid and cool. Everything had come together, returned to the beginning, to the Hobbs kitchen, to the smell of gunpowder, to inevitable blood. 

“Well, apparently, Dr. Lecter, this is how I go.” 

Hannibal was watching him. Will could see his own fever reflected in Hannibal’s eyes. For a moment, he couldn’t see anything else. His finger curled around the trigger. 

When Hannibal moved, Will expected an attack. It was an attack, but not on him. Jack lay on the floor with a bloody wound on the side of his head. Will hadn’t even seen him. He’d been too fixed on Hannibal. The gun sagged. Jack’s blood leaked onto the kitchen floor in a tiny trickle. Too late, he looked for Hannibal. He saw a flash of metal, felt a prick in the side of his neck, and that was all. 

\\*

An unknown period of time passed as a series of impressions: more Minnesota rain, Hannibal holding his face carefully and looking into his eyes and saying words that made no sense, darkness, bright sun, and water. 

The sound of water. The rock of water. The scent of salt and old wood that was as familiar to him as his father’s hands. He lay in a narrow bunk with a thin blanket pulled up to his chin. They had left winter behind. He was warm and dry, and his fever was gone. He felt better than he had in months. 

He sat up slowly and pushed the blanket back. He was wearing only boxers, and they weren’t his. A bottle of water sat nearby. He drank it down. When he stood, his vision dimmed for a second, but he steadied quickly enough and braced himself against the wall as he climbed up out of the cabin. 

The sun on deck blinded him, and he saw Hannibal as a vibrating shadow against the white sail before he resolved into the more familiar image of Will’s friend and betrayer. 

“Ah, you’re up,” Hannibal said. “How are you feeling?” 

“Good. Where are we?” 

“Physically, near Panama. Spiritually or metaphorically, I believe are still in Minnesota. Or perhaps about to cross the Rubicon. Jack interrupted us.” 

“You interrupted Jack,” Will said. He said down heavily on a padded bench just outside the cabin. “Is he dead?”

“No. I only knocked him out. He will recover.” 

“How long was I drugged for?” 

“It’s been ten days. The rest seems to have done you some good.” 

Rage burned in Will’s throat, but with it came a helpless, creeping numbness. His limbs felt heavy and weak. He looked around at the bright sea, the white boat, and Hannibal in his canvas shoes and deepening tan. Will’s eyes ached. He put his face in his hands. 

Hannibal’s weight settled beside him on the bench. “You meant to shoot me in Minnesota.” 

Will nodded. He didn’t trust his voice. 

“And then what? Turn yourself in?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Nothing mattered but ending it.” 

“It’s not too late if that’s what you want.” Hannibal placed the gun in Will’s hand. “It was rude of Jack to break in on our private conversation.” 

Will checked the magazine. It was fully loaded. He chambered one round but left the gun lying in his lap, safety on. “What is this? You still want to see how I go?” 

“I would like you to see how you go, Will. That has been what I wanted for you since the moment we met.”

Will raised the gun slowly. He sighted down the barrel and then laid it along Hannibal’s cheek. “Tell me how you killed Abigail.”

“I didn’t,” Hannibal said. “I removed her ear with her consent.” 

Will stared at him. “And — what? Shoved it down my throat?”

“Yes. Along with something to induce nausea.” 

“She’s alive?”

“Yes. She is waiting for us at my estate in Argentina.”

Will stared at him. Hannibal sat still with his hands folded in his lap. He did not pull away from the press of hard metal against his cheek. “Why didn’t you kill her?” 

“I care for Abigail. I don’t wish to harm her. I don’t wish to harm you either.” 

Will felt his face pull into a rictus of laughter, but no sound came out of him. He gulped and took a breath. It hurt his throat. “You — you made me think I killed her. That I was losing my mind. You framed me for her murder, for Cassie Boyle, for—“ He had to stop. 

“Were they not yours in a manner of speaking?” Hannibal leaned into the barrel of the gun. “You said you tried to know Hobbs, that you had begun to melt into him, but you have struggled harder and for longer to know me. What’s mine is yours.” 

“Does that include your life?” Will said. 

“Yes, if you want it.” Hannibal turned his head to kiss the muzzle of the gun and stayed there, waiting, eyes closed. 

The bullet would go straight through his teeth and out the back of his skull. Will could push his body into the sea and sail away. “Why didn’t you just kill me?” he said. 

Hannibal opened his eyes and looked at him. “I have always been alone, but I had never thought I could be lonely before I met you. Now I know otherwise.” 

Will looked at the familiar lines of his face and imagined them slack and shiny with blood, imagined never hearing his voice again. He stood, walked across the deck, and threw the gun into the sea.


	74. master and commander au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this a long time ago for tumblr and apparently never posted it here. Beverly is Jack Aubrey, Will is Stephen, and I suppose that makes Hannibal Diana...

Beverly already had her best uniform on, shining with gold trim, hat tilted just so. She stood in the doorway and watched Will struggle with his stockings. “Are you – you can’t wear those. Will. You can see that hole from across the room. There will be dancing.”

“I don’t dance. You know I don’t dance.”

“You’ll have to. All Admiral Roan’s friends are over eighty, and two of them have wooden legs. You have no excuse for not dancing but–”

“Does it count if I dance with you?”

“You know it doesn’t. Where are the silk ones?”

“I used them to strain the coffee after that mishap off Gibraltar.”

Beverly paused. “All right. I can’t fault you for that. But you’ll have to double up on the woolens and sweat it out.”

Will nodded, resigned, and went for another pair.

*

Despite the dire looks Beverly gave him from across the room, Will slipped outside as the dancing began. He tipped his head back against the old stone wall of the house and breathed in the scent of the flowering vine nearby.

He turned toward it, cupping the long pale blossom in his palm. He thought he’d heard the hostess say it was an import, brought from South America and now taking over the side of her house. He would’ve liked to question her further, but the noise and the press of bodies and the heat, God in Heaven, the heat. He loosened his neckcloth and seriously contemplated removing at least one pair of stockings. Would anyone really notice?

“One of the ladies left this with me for safekeeping when she stepped onto the dance floor,” someone said. A man was holding out a pale blue folded fan to Will. He was dressed incongruously to match, all in blue silk, down to the stockings of course. “You look more in need of it.”

“You’re not keeping it very safe,” Will said. He took it anyway and snapped it open. The breeze helped.

“I’m sure her friends have told her I’m not to be trusted. She should have listened. Hannibal Lecter.” He held out his hand.

“Will Graham.” Will reached out to clasp the man’s hand, but Hannibal Lecter bowed over his and paused, looking up at him, breath barely warming his knuckles before his lips touched them.

“I understand you don’t dance,” Hannibal said.

Will shook his head, even warmer than he had been a minute ago.

Hannibal smiled and straightened. “That’s a pity,” he said.

He went back inside and left Will with the pale blue fan, the foreign flowers, and an oddly vivid sense of loss.


	75. their first time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: _I was thinking about what it would be like if neither Hannibal nor Will had ever been with a man before, so they were both experiencing it for the first time._

They didn’t stop moving for three months. Hannibal insisted, and, given the way he went gray and sweaty with exertion just from walking across a room, Will couldn’t complain. He could and did carry what little luggage they had, which made his own wounds scream at him. It wasn’t a good three months, but it did push them both so hard physically that they didn’t think much about the future, which, Will thought, was for the best. 

Now, the future was here. It had taken the form of a stone house on a hilltop in Corfu. It was a twenty minute walk to the beach, where Will had a boat tied up to a wooden dock that creaked with the rhythm of the waves. Hannibal spent a lot of time grumbling about the primitive kitchen, but he seemed to get along fine with the grill and wood fired oven out on the patio. 

He’d made pizza with fresh goat cheese, tomato, and black olives for dinner. Will had eaten three pieces. Normally, he didn’t even like olives. Now they sat side by side, drinking white wine and looking out over the sparse lights dotting the hills beneath them. The air smelled of pine, dry grass, and smoke from the oven. 

Hannibal’s wound had healed. Will’s scar had faded to a red line. His shoulder still wasn’t right and probably never would be, but he could use it and he wasn’t living on painkillers anymore. They were safe and whole. 

Hannibal cooked. He drew. He moved through this new life with the same effortless ease he’d shown in Baltimore. But there were moments when he seemed just as much at a loss as Will was. 

Now, for instance. They both looked away from the night landscape and their eyes met. Will felt as if this was a moment of some sort. If it was, it was a moment he didn’t know what to do with. He’d never felt awkward with Hannibal before, not even the first time they’d met. 

He swallowed the last of his wine. “We could take the boat out tomorrow if you want.” 

“Will.” 

“You want some more wine?” He stood. 

So did Hannibal. “Are you afraid of me?” 

That startled Will enough that he stopped trying to edge around him. “No. Why would think that?” 

“You have been more self contained than usual since we arrived here. I cannot read your reasons, and I cannot guess. So I am asking.” 

Will set his glass aside. He took Hannibal’s and drank down the rest of his wine too. Insects whined in grass beyond the patio. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I don’t know what kind of life you meant us to live back — before. With Abigail. I feel like I won’t fit into it very well.” 

“A life together. Of any sort that pleases you.” 

“Any sort?” 

“There are some lives I would prefer more than others. What would you prefer?” 

“I need to work,” Will said. “I’ve been working since I was twelve. I can’t imagine just sitting around. I’ve been doing it for a week and I’m already going nuts.” 

“That should be easy enough. We are on an island. I’m sure there are boat motors in need of repair. What else?” 

Hannibal was standing so close. Will could smell the warmth of his skin and some subtle scent he’d bought in Athens. Cedar, ginger, and salt. 

“You, us, we—“ He bit the inside of his cheek. 

Hannibal waited. 

In the end, it was easier to do than to say. Will put a hand on his arm to keep him close and leaned in and up to kiss him. He heard and felt Hannibal’s breath catch against his lips. 

“That,” Will said, unsteady. “I want that. I want you.” 

Hannibal slid his palm down Will’s arm to rest at his waist, to hold onto Will’s shirt the way he had on the edge of the cliff. 

“Is that what you want?” Will said. 

“Do you need to ask?” 

“If I didn’t need to ask, I wouldn’t be asking.” 

Hannibal leaned down to kiss him again. His eyes were very dark, hands gentle, kisses chaste. “I want you,” Hannibal said. “I would like to draw. To cook. To walk in the hills and on the beach.”

“Nothing else?” 

“Not at the moment.” 

“Okay. I’m not going to argue.” 

Hannibal laughed, just a breath against Will’s cheek. It sounded good. Will wanted to hear it again. 

“Shall we go to bed?” Hannibal said. “Or is that too forward?” 

“Yours or mine?” 

“As you prefer.” 

“Mine then.” 

Will kept his hold on Hannibal’s arm, and Hannibal put a hand on his back. They walked close together down the narrow hall, hips and shoulders bumping. Will’s room had two large windows to let in the night air and, in daylight, a view of the sea. It was audible even from this distance, a whisper over the sound of the wind in the grass and the soft rustle of their clothes dropping to the floor. 

Hannibal put both his hands on Will’s waist, on his bare skin. Will held onto his forearms. “The lights,” Will said. “I want the lights on.” 

Hannibal made a noise that suggested agreement, but he didn’t move beyond the slow drag of his palms down a few inches to Will’s hips and back up again. He pressed a dry kiss to Will’s neck. Their bodies came together. Will could feel Hannibal’s cock against his thigh. 

Hannibal slid both hands around and down. He stopped just short of cupping Will’s ass. 

Will smiled. “I think you can go for it at this point.” 

“And what will you go for?” 

“I don’t even know where to start.” 

Hannibal moved his hands down those last crucial inches. His touch was feather light, almost ticklish. Will stroked over Hannibal’s shoulders and the curved line of his collar bone. He brought both hands up to frame his face. Their second kiss was as light and chaste as the first. They had inflicted so much violence on each other that Will was almost afraid to take it further in case they fell back into old habits. 

He was getting hard. Hannibal was too. Will slid his arms around Hannibal’s neck and leaned into him. He touched his tongue to Hannibal’s lower lip. Hannibal’s mouth opened for him, and Hannibal’s grip tightened on his ass. Will’s pulse started to pick up. 

“Lights,” he said again. “Bed.” But since he didn’t stop kissing Hannibal for a second, the lights stayed off. They did shuffle a few steps closer to the bed, but that was all. 

Will had his hands at Hannibal’s waist now, feeling the slight softness there, the curve of his stomach. He’d gone thin to gaunt in the month after their fall, eating almost nothing and taking no pleasure in it. Dying, Will had thought at the time. 

Will kissed the underside of his jaw and pulled him closer with a hand at the small of his back. “I’m glad you’re okay. I’m glad you’re — we’re here.” 

Hannibal lowered his head to lean his temple against Will’s. He breathed in slowly. “So am I. More than glad.” 

They backed up the last few steps to the bed. Will switched on the light. 

Hannibal blinked down at him. He pressed another careful kiss to Will’s lips. “Is there something in particular you want?” 

Will’s mouth twitched. “I don’t know. Do you always ask? Is there a menu I can order off of?” 

Hannibal pressed a thumb to Will’s lips and gave him a quelling look. “Not always. It seemed safer to ask, but if you have no strong preference—“ 

“I want to suck your dick,” Will said. He swallowed. “I didn’t meant to say it quite that, uh. But I do.” 

Hannibal’s lips parted slightly. He looked down at Will’s mouth and quickly back up again. “Have you thought about it often?” 

Will nodded. “I’ll take tips if you’ve got any. I haven’t done this before.”

“I can only offer you feedback from the receiving end, I’m afraid.” 

“I figured you’d done everything. With everyone.” 

Hannibal looked down. His fingers moved slowly at the small of Will’s back. “Sex has been primarily a means to an end for me, not a priority. I have had very few partners in my life.”

“The murder and cannibalism were more interesting, huh?” 

“Yes,” Hannibal said simply. 

Will shook his head and kissed him again. “Right. Well, tell me if I do it wrong, at least.” He pushed Hannibal down to sit on the edge of the bed. 

“I find that prospect unlikely.” 

Will got to his knees. It put Hannibal’s cock close to his face. That was, after all, the point, but it was a little strange, a little new. Hannibal’s expression was new too, almost dazed. He had his hands flat on the bed, fingers pressing into the quilt. 

Will took Hannibal’s cock in one hand, feeling the shape and weight of it. He leaned close and licked across the head. Above him, Hannibal took an audible breath. Will put his lips around it and looked up to judge his reaction. Hannibal sat frozen, mouth open, staring down at him. 

Taste and scent mixed together. They filled Will’s nose and mouth and throat. He took another inch or two in and sucked. It felt like consumption. He’d had that thought when he was going down on Molly and Margot, couldn’t get Hannibal out of his head even for that. 

He pulled off and licked him once more. “You can touch me if you want. I like it. Usually.” 

Hannibal smoothed his hands over Will’s hair and then threaded his fingers through it. “Touch you how? Did you enjoy it when your past partners held you in place? Your mouth just where they wanted it? It is a temptation.” 

Will had to break off again to breathe and to swallow. He had liked it, and he thought he’d like it more now. “Just don’t choke me,” he muttered and took Hannibal back in his mouth, inside him. He let his teeth graze the shaft and both felt and heard Hannibal’s indrawn breath. 

He sucked and slid his tongue along the underside, over the head, used his lips as well as he could. Hannibal’s grip in his hair tightened, and Will could feel the growing tension in thighs and stomach. 

“Will—“ A shudder passed through Hannibal. He made a low noise and clutched at Will’s hair. 

Will sucked harder and tightened the circle of his lips. Hannibal came in his mouth, thick and hot. It leaked out the corners of his mouth and down his chin. He’d hardly managed to swallow any of it, and he struggled not to cough. He wiped his mouth and looked up. 

Hannibal was staring at him. He took Will’s face between his hands and smoothed across his lips with a thumb. He wiped through his come on Will’s face, rubbing it into his skin with rapt fascination. 

Will let his eyes close. His cock jerked. He wanted to touch himself, but he wanted Hannibal to touch him more. “Can you—“ 

“Yes. Yes, come here. Get up on the bed.” 

Hannibal hauled him up, barely waiting for Will’s cooperation. He pulled Will close against him. They both lay on their sides, and Hannibal took him in hand immediately. 

Will gripped his shoulders tight. He wanted to watch Hannibal’s face, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open. His nails dug into Hannibal’s skin. He was so close he ached with it. Hannibal took his hand away for a second to lick his palm, and even that ordinary gesture made Will hotter. 

“Will you, next time, will you—“ 

“Yes,” Hannibal said in his ear. “For as long as you can bear it.” 

Will hid his face against Hannibal’s shoulder as he came, body taut and shaking with it. He took half a dozen heaving breaths while Hannibal stroked him more and more gently. 

Hannibal’s lips brushed his temple. “Acceptable?” 

Will breathed out silent laughter. “Pretty good. We can practice.” 

“I hope we will.” Hannibal pulled a fold of the quilt over them and pressed Will onto his back. He lay half on top of him as if he was afraid he might escape. 

Will put a hand between his shoulder blades and drew his middle finger down Hannibal’s spine. “So you never sucked a guy off or never did anything at all?”

“Nothing at all. I have only been with women and few enough of them. The pretense of intimacy has not seemed to me to be worthwhile.” 

“How’s the real thing?” 

“Terrifying in a way that I did not know was possible.” 

Will kissed him. They stayed close, wrapped together, lips barely parting between breaths.


	76. hell of a ride

It’s not even five in the morning, and the sky outside is flat black without a hint of stars or dawn. It wasn’t nightmares that woke Will this time. It was Hannibal’s light touch on his thigh and the press of his erection and his murmur in the dark. _May I?_ Like he was asking for the salt. 

It’s the first or fourth time that day Hannibal’s had his fingers in him, depending on whether Will resets the counter at midnight or at dawn. It feels like four. He feels wide open and stretched and slick, boxers kicked to the end of the bed, sweat rising along his back as Hannibal sucks precise marks into a collar around his neck. 

Hannibal slides both hands under Will’s T-shirt and runs them in long strokes over his ribs and stomach. His nails scratch over Will’s nipples. “Ride me,” he says. 

Will climbs onto him, and Hannibal’s cock fits easily inside him now. He is sore after taking it so often and so hard. It makes him squirm a little and protest softly. Hannibal catches his hips and holds and soothes him — and fucks up into him hard with no warning so that Will’s spine arches and his body squeezes tight. 

Hannibal strokes his thighs and spreads them wide. Will’s cock brushes against his T-shirt and leaves smears of fluid behind. That light touch makes him need more, but he’s not getting it. 

Hannibal slides both hands around to cradle his ass. “Move,” he says. 

Will swallows and plants both hands on Hannibal’s chest, and moves. He sets a rhythm like a heartbeat, like the quick pound he can feel under his palms. His breath is rough, open-mouthed panting. It’s the dark and humid night, the warmth of Hannibal’s body, the fact that Hannibal would wake him for this, the fact that they can do this whenever they want. Hannibal’s little wanton cruelties and denials drive him to the edge, but he doesn’t really want to tip over, which makes them not cruel at all, which is Hannibal all over. Nothing Will wants but everything he needs. 

“Faster,” Hannibal says. His voice is rough now too, and his fingers dig into Will’s flesh. 

“If you want it faster, take it,” Will tells him. 

In a second, he is on his back with Hannibal driving into him and Will is gasping, just gasping and clinging on with arms and legs as Hannibal takes him. His cock is caught between their bodies and the friction is all it takes. He grabs Hannibal’s hair and makes wordless, high sound as he comes. It’s too much, too much too many times. His body is done, but he’s not. And neither is Hannibal. 

Hannibal is silent and trembling when he comes, when he pulls out and jerks off over Will’s stomach. He presses back on top of Will afterward, bearing him down and nearly crushing the breath out of him. Will doesn’t object. He wraps his legs around Hannibal’s waist and traces the bloody nail marks on the back of Hannibal’s neck from last time. 

They’re both sweaty, sticky, hungry, thirsty, exhausted. Bodies almost too sensitive to touch, let alone cling like this. They should shower and eat and find another motel. Keep moving. Instead, though he knows it will be something close to torture, Will says, “Suck me till I get hard again.” 

Hannibal lets out a soft, helpless sound and slides down his body to obey.

**Author's Note:**

> You can check out my [original writing here](http://www.eleanorkos.com/) if you're interested.
> 
>  [emungere.tumblr.com](http://emungere.tumblr.com)
> 
>  If you have more prompts, please leave them in my tumblr ask box rather than here; it helps me stay organized. Thanks! <3


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